Christian White

4.5 stars.

The Nowhere Child by Christian White is an enthralling mystery that is quite clever and unique.

Thirty year old Kimberly "Kim" Leamy lives in Melbourne, AU and teaches photography. Her world is turned upside down after she is approached by an American stranger who tells her she might actually be Sammy Went, who was kidnapped in Kentucky twenty-six years earlier. After receiving information that confirms her identity, Kim travels to the United States to try to piece together the show more events that ripped her from her family in Kentucky. But the biggest mystery she is hoping to solve is how she ended up living in Australia.

Unable to get answers from her stepfather, Dean, Kim hopes that confronting her past in Manson, KY will untangle the truth about her life. Her reception by her birth family is not quite what she expects. Her brother Stuart has never given up hope his sister would be found. Her sister Emma tried to move forward by admitting Sammy is most likely dead. Their mother Molly clings to her faith although the fundamentalist church that is the cornerstone of her religion is no longer the powerhouse it once was. Kim's father, Jack, left town years ago and she is uncertain whether she will meet him. While Kim is not necessarily finding irrefutable proof of how ended up Australia, she does uncover a clue that raises more questions than answers.

Interspersed with the events unfolding in the present are chapters that detail the day of Sammy's kidnapping and the ensuing search for her. The Went family is somewhat fractured with Molly sometimes losing patience with her young daughter. She is deeply religious and clings tightly to the church that Jack has long since abandoned. After Sammy's disappearance, Emma is forced to grow up too soon as she discovers shocking truths about her family. Stuart does not handle the kidnapping well and he reverts to a happier time in his young life. Jack's world begins spinning out his control as he frantically searches for his daughter just as his life begins to implode.

With chapters alternating between Kim's search for answers in the present and the days after her kidnapping in the past, The Nowhere Child is a fast-paced and spellbinding mystery. The characters are interesting and well-developed but not all of them are easy to relate to or like. The plot is well-developed with just enough suspense to keep the pages turning at a blistering pace. With stunning twists and unexpected turns, Christian White brings the novel to a jaw-dropping conclusion. An absolutely brilliant debut that I found impossible to put down and highly recommend to fans of the genre. show less

I’ve been eager for the chance to read Christian White, whose debut novel, The Nowhere Child, and his sophomore offering, The Wife and the Widow, hit the bestsellers lists.

Wild Place is set in the heart of Australian suburbia during the summer of 1989. When seventeen year old Tracie Reed is reported missing, the police dismiss her as a runaway, despite her mother’s insistent denials. The teen’s disappearance bothers Tom Witter, Tracie’s high school English teacher and a neighbour of show more a sorts. Worried about the vulnerability of his own two boys, he involves himself in a search for the missing girl, and finds a suspect in the teenage son of a neighbour, Sean Fryman, whose sullen manner, black clothing, and love of heavy metal music marks him as a possible threat.

The titular wild place is a strip of dense bushland that is commonly found in the midst of Australian suburbs. Generally considered innocuous, hosting children’s homemade forts and games of pretend adventure, perhaps the odd amorous couple or rebellious group of teens, these areas provide a token connection to nature, and respite from suburban crowding. To the residents of Camp Hill in the wake of Tracie’s disappearance however the bush becomes sinister, a wild place that may hide strangers intent on doing harm.

The danger doesn’t lurk in the woods at all of course. White slowly strips away the veneer of suburban respectability as he exposes that the threats who stalk the community openly walk its streets. Secrets, lies and deceptions unravel to reveal unexpected events and hidden connections in surprising ways. While Sean is the obvious target of suspicion for those convinced Tracie has fallen victim to a predator, White continually nudges the frame, raising alternative possibilities. Skilful plotting with clever misdirects ensures it’s difficult to guess at the denouement, but it was the epilogue that left me gasping.

Firmly grounded in period and setting, Wild Place evokes some nostalgia for my suburban childhood. Coincidently, this is the second newly published book I’ve read in as many weeks that draws on the ‘Satanic Panic’ of the Eighties and early Nineties as an element of the crime.

With its intriguing characters and brilliant plot, Wild Place is suspenseful and gripping crime fiction, destined to be another bestseller. show less

Imagine you are living a quiet life, teaching photography at your local vocational school in Australia, still mourning the death of your beloved mother, but close to your step-father and half-sister. Then a stranger from halfway across the world shows up and tells you he believes you were kidnapped from a family in Kentucky when you were two years old, and your entire life has been a lie. Initially, he says he's a friend of your biological family, but then after showing you DNA test show more results, he reveals that he's actually your biological brother.

In alternating chapters, we follow Kim's journey to discover the truth about her past, while also learning about the events surrounding the 1990 disappearance of Sammy Went. The Went family was already falling apart before the youngest member disappeared without a trace from her upstairs bedroom, and every family member is hiding something. Mother Molly is a member of a fundamentalist church ::cough, cult:: and pretty obviously suffering from postpartum depression, father Jack is finding affection elsewhere, teenage sister Emma is running wild, and middle child Stuart is completely lost in the chaos.

Mr. White has written a really strong debut that contains everything I look for in a mystery/suspense novel: complicated, believable characters; an original plot that is logical without being predictable (several times I thought I knew what was going to happen next, but was happy to find myself wrong); and twists that left me saying, "oh!" instead of feeling manipulated. In the last 50 pages, the drama gets turned up to 11, which doesn't entirely match the pacing/tone of the rest of the novel, but it's definitely not anti-climactic.

The Nowhere Child, which has already been released in Christian White's native Australia, won't be availabe in the U.S. until January 2019, but I received an Advance Reader Copy through a Goodreads giveaway. show less

"Why do good people do bad things?" is an interesting question, explored fully in WILD PLACE by Christian White.

Set in the heart of Australian suburbia, during the height of the summer of 1989, seventeen year old Tracie Reed vanished one night. Her parents in the middle of a fraught divorce, Tracie's behaviour had changed in the leadup and despite her mother's protestations to the contrary, police have basically dismissed her as a runaway. Part of the local neighbourhood watch, Tracie's high show more school English teacher, and neighbour, starts digging into her disappearance, worried about his own two boys, quickly settling on his own idea of a suspect - the teenager next door, Sean Fryman. Sullen, reclusive, a bit weird, with a love of gothic clothing and heavy metal music, there's nothing like being different to mark you out as a potential suspect in anything dodgy.

Right from the very start of WILD PLACE there's a sense of "otherness" going on. In the middle of supposedly tranquil, ordered suburbia there's one of those little pockets of bushland that used to be common - the titular wild place, that Tom's own house backs onto. The place where kids played, teenagers gathered for illicit assignations or just simply to smoke and hang out and snakes lurked, access to these places is increasingly disappearing as nature is wiped away and built out. Once Tracie goes missing though, the Wild Place goes from somewhere innocent and mildly threatening, to something lurking, mysterious and frightening. Especially as far as Tom's concerned as he bans his young son from every going there, and takes to exploring the area himself, finding plenty of odd things to worry over.

As the story progresses it increasingly becomes obvious that the "wild place" is a convenient scapegoat, and there is plenty of oddity and danger lurking much closer - in the houses and the people of the suburb, many of whom seem to be hiding a lot of secrets. To say nothing of a spot of "Satanic Panic" very common in the 1980's in particular. Carefully letting the boundaries of possibilities slide outwards, the author takes the reader from a contained, acceptable threat - whatever is other and lurking in the wild place, to the wider area - and the people in it. The possibility that the threat is within the community, one of them, nothing "other" about it at all slowly reveals itself, leaving the reader disconcerted and baffled, until the epilogue at which point you'd be forgiven for taking a rather different look at everyone around you.

Having never been a child of the suburbs, and only briefly an adult in those places it's books like WILD PLACE that could make you look more fondly on the wide open, sparsely populated areas of our world. You know where you stand with a snake, but this novel could leave you wondering if you ever really know that about people.

https://www.austcrimefiction.org/review/wild-place-christian-white show less