I finished Homecoming by K. Morton and as usual, a superb book that one cannot put down until the end; my Goodreads review and then the blurb;
Excellent return to form from the author; the usual two storylines, past mystery, and present-day revelations as in most of her novels, though this time the past mystery is presented mostly through an investigative book written by an overseas writer who happened to be in the area at the time, though there are direct scenes from the time and of course enough clues from the first page.
While part of the mystery related to the disappearance of the baby is fairly clear early on, at least for any regular reader of the author, the rest including the revelations at the end that turn most of the conventional wisdom upside down, while again the trademark of Kate Morton, are extremely well down and of course, one has to go back to the first pages and see the perfect way things fit together.
The blurb is fairly accurate as storylines go, but as usual, the execution is what matters and here it is done masterfully, with a novel that is an end-to-end page-turner full of energy and among the best of the author.
Top 10 of mine for 2023 and highly recommended both for regular readers of Kate Morton and for ones who want to try and see why her books are successful and highly praised
Blurb:
Adelaide Hills, Christmas Eve, 1959: At the end of a scorching hot day, beside a creek on the grounds of the grand and mysterious mansion, a local delivery man makes a terrible discovery. A police investigation is called and the small town of Tambilla becomes embroiled in one of the most shocking and perplexing murder cases in the history of South Australia.
Sixty years later, Jess is a journalist in search of a story. Having lived and worked in London for almost twenty years, she now finds herself laid off from her full-time job and struggling to make ends meet. A phone call out of nowhere summons her back to Sydney, where her beloved grandmother, Nora, who raised Jess when her mother could not, has suffered a fall and been raced to the hospital.
Nora has always been a vibrant and strong presence: decisive, encouraging, young despite her years. When Jess visits her in the hospital, she is alarmed to find her grandmother frail and confused. It’s even more alarming to hear from Nora's housekeeper that Nora had been distracted in the weeks before her accident and had fallen on the steps to the attic—the one place Jess was forbidden from playing in when she was small.
At loose ends in Nora's house, Jess does some digging of her own. In Nora's bedroom, she discovers a true crime book, chronicling the police investigation into a long-buried tragedy: the Turner Family Tragedy of Christmas Eve, 1959. It is only when Jess skims through the book that she finds a shocking connection between her own family and this once-infamous crime—a crime that has never been resolved satisfactorily. And for a journalist without a story, a cold case might be the best distraction she can find…
