[usr 5]

A gripping, at times disturbing novel, hard to believe it is a debut work by Kerryn Mayne. Divided into fifty five short chapters and set in a small town in Victoria in the Dandenongs, it is compelling and is full of suspense. At times it is strange, eerie and yet greatly appealing. It is very complex and multi layered.

Lenny Marks was born Helena Winters and suffered a severe trauma twenty-five years ago .She  has been haunted ever since,  trying not to remember what happened the day her mother Tammy left her and the death of her little brother Malcolm. Readers see how Lenny’s life has been formatted by a blocked memory and what happens when it all returns to her. Suddenly a totally unexpected letter arrives from the Adult Parole Board,  informing her that her stepfather, the horrendous, abusive Fergus, is being released from prison after over 20 years – and Lenny starts to dangerously crack. And remember ..

The clearly delineated time frame jumps between 2022 and what happened in 1999.

Now in 2022, aged thirty seven, Lenny is a school teacher and her class love her. But she is very reserved and a bit odd, keeping herself to herself. One wonders whether she is possibly on the Spectrum and we learn that she has an dissociative disorder. She much prefers routine, loves watching Friends on TV, is a serious cyclist, has an imaginary housemate named Monica who she plays Scrabble with at night, and owns an extensive collection of various editions of The Hobbit. When Lenny is stressed she finds it a help to arrange the Scrabble tiles in her head so the narrative is scattered with various words that have caused her to ponder.

Recently though, to keep her much loved foster mother Fay happy, she has set herself the goal of ‘getting a life’ and other staff members persistently invite her to social outings ( she proves to be terrific at trivia nights ). The guy at the local supermarket who she fancies is already seeing another of the teachers who wants to be her friend. On the spur of the moment she rescues a dog, which she calls Malcolm, from his ghastly abusive owner (Jase) but he knows it was Lenny who petnapped him and demands his return.

Lenny pretends that if she ignores everything looming over her that might capsize her life, then it will all disappear and she can continue as usual. However Lenny is forced to doubt all she has ever understood. Who do we become when we can’t trust our memories? How are we defined by the events in our childhood and youth? In this particular case, blood has been splattered and lies told – but by whose hands and whose is the blood?

We learn of Lenny’s ghostly younger self Helena, and how she eventually develops friendships with her next door neighbour Maureen and a couple of the other teachers. Also Lenny’s relationship with her much loved grandmother she called Zanny. We see how she grows and changes internally, facing her past, finds out how much she is loved and wanted, deals with police and Wendy from Victim Support, trying to unravel and discover her real self and tentatively explores new vistas of romance and friendship.

Yes, the book is concerned with various crimes, but it is also about how crime affects the survivors who must struggle to continue their lives.

A captivating read.

https://www.penguin.com.au/books/lenny-marks-gets-away-with-murder-9781761048043