The Unbelieved (Vikki Petraitis, A&U)

Having already collected Allen & Unwin’s in-house crime fiction prize, The Unbelieved is set to launch with a splash as Vikki Petraitis gathers her considerable storytelling experience into an impressive debut. The author’s background in true crime writing and podcasts means The Unbelieved absolutely captures the zeitgeist—it’s a pacy thriller packed with facts and statistics, and a nod to the real-life problems of our justice system when it comes to male violence. Detective Antigone Pollard is a big-city cop returned to her home town of Deception Bay to recover from a case that went awry. Almost immediately targeted by a would-be rapist in the local pub, she finds a series of connected sexual assaults in the district and uncovers corruption at every level during her search for the truth. There are many villains in Deception Bay, spanning the full spectrum of harm from insensitive jerks to active predators, but Antigone is a mighty protagonist. She’s fearless, exacting, honourable and smart, teaching a self-defence class at the local CWA and confronting bad behaviour with breathtaking regularity. The Unbelieved is a gleaming puzzle box of plot twists, conspiracy and comeuppance, and if the story’s many parts are all tidied away a little too neatly, that would be my only criticism amid heaped praise. Among so many stories featuring women’s suffering, The Unbelieved is a standout success.

Anne Barnetson is a bookseller and illustrator based in Perth.

Category: Reviews