The thrill of it by Mandy Beaumont

Mandy Beaumont, a Stella Prize longlisted author, has written a compelling and dark story, a fictionalized version of the notorious Granny killings in Sydney between 1989 and 1990. Written in dual voices, it explores the motivation of a killer, and the feelings of a young woman whose beloved, zany grandmother, Marlowe Kerr, was murdered, her killer never found. Emmerson has been a young child in 1977 when she found her grandmother dead and in 1989, she is still trying to work out what happened to her. When she hears that an 84-year-old woman has been found dead in Syndey’s North Shore, her body arranged just as Marlowe’s has been, she is determined to investigate what happened.

This is a taut, grim story, one that I had to read in short bursts as the brutality of the murders was awful and the mind of the killer very difficult to handle. The police had been inept when examining the murder scene of Marlowe Kerr, and Emmerson and Kevin, the groundsman for her family home, are not convinced that they will be even better when probing the deaths of more women. Older women have been advised strongly to stay in their homes and not venture out alone, restricting their lives and living in fear.

Beaumont explores the attitude of society, the police and the press towards older women, dubbed Grannies, omitting their achievements, ambitions and substance. One paragraph stood out for me where Emmerson states that she is “not going to stand by and allow her, or any woman, to diminished and dismissed….“(pg. 91-91).

Readers who are drawn to true crime stories will find this fictionalized crime story riveting, while those who read cosy mysteries for escapism from real life, may find reading about the real crimes it was based on difficult but unforgettable.

Themes: Murder, Police, Older women.

Pat Pledger