Review: TRACED, Catherine Jinks

• 
   Text Publishing Company Australia 2023
  
• ISBN 9-781922-790125
• 341 pages

Synopsis (publisher)

Jane is a contact tracer. She has to call a lot of people and some of them don’t want to talk. Various reasons – tax or immigration issues, infidelity. Domestic abuse.

Jane knows all about that. She and her daughter Tara have spent years in hiding from Tara’s manipulative and terrifying ex. Now, as Jane talks to a close contact, she realises the woman on the phone is scared of the same man – and he’s close. Too close.

Suddenly the past comes slamming back into the present as Jane realises she and Tara can’t keep running forever.

One day, they’re going to be found.

My Take

Jane is a Covid-19 contact tracer, one of those trying to prevent the virus becoming endemic in Australia. So far her work has preserved her anonymity, but then she comes across a victim of domestic violence who gives Jane enough clues as to the identity of her perpetrator, and to her horror, Jane knows him!

A very engrossing read.

My rating: 4.5

I've also read

• 4.5, SHELTER
• 4.3, THE ATTACK
  

Review: THE ATTACK, Catherine Jinks

• This edition published by Text Publishing 2021
  
• ISBN 9781922458117
  
• 325 pages

Synopsis (publisher)

Robyn Ayres works as the camp caretaker on Finch Island, a former leper colony off the coast of Queensland. Her current clients are a group of ex-military men who run a tough-love program for troubled teens.

The latest crop looks like the usual mix of bad boys and sad boys. Then Robyn takes a second look at a kid called Darren. Last time she saw him his name was Aaron, and Robyn was his primary school teacher. And she was somehow at the centre of a vicious small-town custody battle involving his terrifying grandmother.

Bruising classroom dynamics, manipulative parents and carers and horrendous small-town politics form the backdrop to a nail-biting thriller in which the tensions of ten years ago start to play themselves out, building to a violent climax in the present day.

Robyn escaped the past once. Now it’s back—and this time there’s no way out.

My Take 

Quite a suspenseful read with a bit of unravelling to do. We flit between two main time frames: the present, and what happened ten years before, as well as Robyn's immediate past which led her to taking the job on Finch Island, literally getting away from everything.

It is hard to imagine Shaun's program on Finch Island for troublesome and troubled boys in their teens ever being particularly pleasant, but this particular group bring together a heap of real problems. Even putting potato peelers in their hands is fraught with danger. But many of the boys have their own vindictive agenda, not necessarily against Robyn, but she is a relatively vulnerable target.

There are a number of dramatic points, but the day of their graduation ceremony brings it all together,

My rating: 4.4

I've also read

4.5, SHELTER

Review: SHELTER, Catherine Jinks

• 
  format: e-book for Kindle (Amazon)
  
• ASIN : B08KTP6721
• Publisher : Text Publishing (5 January 2021)
• Language : English
• File size : 2006 KB
• Print length : 327 pages
• Page numbers source ISBN : 1922330469

Synopsis (Amazon)

Meg lives alone: a little place in the bush outside town. A perfect place to hide. That’s one of the reasons she offers to shelter Nerine, who’s escaping a violent ex. The other is that Meg knows what it’s like to live with an abusive partner.

Nerine is jumpy and her two little girls are frightened. It tells Meg all she needs to know where they’ve come from, and she’s not all that surprised when Nerine asks her to get hold of a gun. But she knows it’s unnecessary. They’re safe now.

Then she starts to wonder about some little things. A disturbed flyscreen. A tune playing on her windchimes. Has Nerine’s ex tracked them down? Has Meg’s husband turned up to torment her some more?

By the time she finds out, it’ll be too late to do anything but run for her life.

My take

At first Meg focusses on keeping Nerine's presence in her house a secret from her neighbours and friends. The scenario is complicated by the impact of everything on Nerene's young daughters.

By the time Meg realises that Nerine is not only unhinged but dangerous, it is almost too late. And nothing prepared me for the impact of what has happened on Meg's own life.  

It is enough to persuade you to never help anyone ever again.

My rating: 4.5

About the author

Catherine Jinks’ books for adults, young adults and children have been published in a dozen countries and have won numerous awards, including a Victorian Premier’s Literary Award and the CBCA Book of the Year Award (four times). She lives in the Blue Mountains.