TWO compelling new books by Australian authors grappling with life and loss make great rest-of-summer reading.
Missing by Tom Patterson is the beautifully written and affecting true story of a young man caught in a world he can't control and how he finds a way to survive.
In 1972, Mark May is 18, bright and beautiful and has a scholarship to study law.
A decade later he descends alone into into remote remote gorge country in north-western NSW, where he lives in rough camps and stays for 32 years.
Then, after discovering a note left in a tree by Mark, two of his brothers go into the gorge to look for him.
Missing is a true story of emotional force. It is about the long-term effects of trauma and drug addiction and how they can impact the individual and the wider family.
It is about living in nature and the desire to live a different life outside of the norms of society. Iit is a story about survival, freedom and humanity.
Tom Patterson grew up in the region. Missing follows years of research and extensive interviews with Mark May;s friends.
This book is an extension of his Weekend Australian Magazine piece "Searching for a lost soul", which was nominated for the 2021 Walkley award for feature writing.
- Missing, Tom Patterson (Allen & Unwin), $32.99.
SNAKES IN THE CANE
Maryrose Cuskelly's novel The Cane is also based on fact. Cuskelly has lived in Melbourne for many years but was born in Queensland where, in the early 1970s, there were several high- profile child abductions and murders.
The 1972 disappearance of Mackay girl, Marilyn Wallman, while riding her bike to school, made a lasting impression on her.
In 2016, Mary Rose was awarded the New England Thunderbolt prize for Chrome writing (nonfiction) for her essay "well before dark", about Maryland's disappearance and the way it percolated through her own childhood in later life.
The Cane returns to some of the themes and preoccupations of that essay about the cane.
Four weeks after the disappearance of 16-year-old Janet MtcClymont the community of Quala in North Queensland cane country is riven with dread and distrust.
All have fallen under suspicion and the children, watched over by their anxious parents, dream of a malevolent presence in the fields of sugarcane.
As the cane fires begin and sugar crush gets under way, the people of Quala a wonder if Janet will ever be found.
- The Cane, Maryrose Cuskelly (Allen & Unwin), $32.99
KILLER IN A ROBE
AWAY from Australia, if it's exciting all-out fiction you are looking for, go no further than John Grisham's latest legal thriller, The Judge's List.
The book sees the return of Lacy Stoltz, investigator for the Florida Board on Judicial Conduct.
While looking for a change she meets Jeri Crosby, whose father was murdered 20 years earlier in a case that remains unsolved. But Jeri has a suspect whom she has become obsessed with and has stalked for two decades.
Along the way, she has discovered other victims. But proof seems impossible: the man is brilliant, patient, and always one step ahead of law enforcement. He cunning, knows forensics, police procedure and he knows the law. He is a judge.
And he has a list, with the names of his victims and targets, all unsuspecting people unlucky enough to have crossed his path and wronged him in some way. In pursuing him, Lacy could be next.
- The Judge's List, John Grisham (Hodder & Stoughton), $32.99.
READ MORE: BOOK: The Great Forest (David Lindenmayer)
