“The internet is the fiery bowels of hell.” says a major character in Sarah Bailey’s latest thriller, CLICK.
Set in the first month of 2020 just before the catastrophe of the Covid 19 pandemic, CLICK also conjures the coming of the dark web and its insidious tendrils, a large intestine processing the effluent of a diseased society.
One woman is dead, two others have disappeared. A grotesque photograph sent via a bogus Instagram file is sent to Melbourne’s largest newspaper. So begins a sequence of unease and the emergence of a suspected serial killer dubbed The Photographer.
Working on the case is young detective constable, Penelope Kibbs, and her partner, Barnes. Following the story are journalists Olive Groves and TJ. Their investigations, both police and the press, become interdependent, interwoven and explosively entwined.
Both reporters and police find that in this grave new digital world of 24 hour news cycle, speed is its own currency, the future is fast, and accuracy is increasingly becoming an optional extra.
CLICK speaks directly to a world where attention is currency, and someone is prepared to kill for it. The prey is women, the predators, piss weak males, often privileged pricks, pretend patriots to their gender but in fact traitors to masculinity, tainted by misogyny.
In CLICK, new media journalists Olive and TJ are in the business of engagement and that’s exactly the business of author Sarah Bailey.
Due to Bailey’s sharp narrative style, there’s an intellectual charge to the visceral thrill of the hunt, a kick palpably shared by the journalists Olive and TJ and the intrepid detective, Penelope Kibbs.
Rich in detail, strong on character, with a lithe, labyrinthine plot that functions on a plethora of emotional levels, CLICK is a masterclass in thriller writing, a bravura display of technique and hugely entertaining.
CLICK ticks all the boxes and kicks all the goals.
CLICK by Sarah Bailey is published by Allen & Unwin.
