Another JTH book with Evil and an underworld / underground setting. This one is based in a remote outback location. What's great about the book? The author's style of releasing the plot through the stories of a number of different characters, so you have to concentrate. The language and dialogue is always a feature of JTH novels and you are always left with enough uncertainty to think about the novel for a number of days. The characters are real people for JTH. She cares for them, even if they are not always safe. ( )

Echoes of Waco, Heaven's Gate, and Jonestown combine with intimations of apocalypse in a stunningly evocative story of life in a remote Australian hell-hole--a place where evil is as pervasive as the heat, goodness as rare as rain. Australian writer Hospital (The Last Magician, 19??, etc.) sets her morality tale in Outer Maroo, a town in a hot, arid region where droughts are common and a sinister, moistureless fog often covers the land. It's a place so remote that it's not even on the maps, yet its soil is riven with opal seams. These opals, and the isolation, attract folks ``who are always waiting for retribution to catch up with them''--including the charismatic Oyster, who founds a commune (Oyster's Reef) just outside of town. Gradually, he begins to attract idealistic young people; they come as disciples, but soon find themselves digging for opals and catering to Oyster's increasingly bizarre needs. A chorus of voices recalls his lethal effect on Outer Maroo--how he corrupted many of the locals, offering them wealth and freedom from a government they viewed as intrusive, and how a teacher was among those brutally murdered for opposing him. Oyster's reign ended, appropriately, in an apocalyptic fire in which he and most of his followers perished. Only the good--Mercy, a young girl Oyster raped; Ethel, a local Aborigine; Jess, a former surveyor; Major Miner, a veteran and former POW; plus Nick and Sarah, two ``foreigners'' searching for their lost children--survive. These are the people who now recollect the corruption and destruction of Outer Maroo and their discovery of a kind of redemption after Oyster's end--and a chance to build a shining city of faith. A deep and harrowing journey through a desolate land into the recesses of the soul and then back into the light, all recorded in luminous prose. -- ( )

don't worry...this is not a spoiler, just a synopsis

Told mostly in reverse sequence, Oyster begins with two people coming into a tiny mining town called Outer Maroo, which is "off the map" in Queensland's outback. Strangers are not welcome in this place, especially these two, because they come with questions about their missing children. It seems that their children (grown adults, actually) had joined some kind of group which was supposedly a commune led by a charismatic religious man by the name of Oyster. No questions can be asked, though, that the townspeople are willing to answer and no matter what, these two strangers cannot be allowed to leave and let anyone know of the existence of this place. Life wasn't always like this, but things changed with Oyster's arrival. After Oyster came, people came in by the truckload, drawn to his message and by whatever it is that draws people to cults. They took up residence at a place called Oyster's Reef, where, for the grace of God and the commune (and of course, more mundane reasons unknown to them), they drew together and mined opals. But by then, many of the townspeople are either in on the action or are alarmed at the rising number of people at Oyster's Reef, and you can literally feel the tension as the action progresses.

As the book opens, the reader knows something terrible has happened and that draws you in immediately, trying to figure out what's going on. Bits and pieces of the story escape until you've got the ugly picture of just what has happened in the town of Outer Maroo, and the incidents leading up to the mysterious event that opens the story.

I don't know why so many reviewers panned this book...it was excellent. I have to say that at first the style was a little off-putting until I realized that things were happening not sequentially, but being revealed little by little. For the most part, the characterization was great. I grew to hate some of the characters and really pulled for my favorites. It was compelling and a page turner.

I don't know if I'd recommend this to all readers, actually. Although the story is excellent, people who want their standard plot line & a nice neat tidy bow at the end tying all things up will be disappointed. You really want to take this one slow...it is well worth the time it takes to get through it. ( )