Looking for Eden (Caroline Overington, HarperCollins)

The latest offering from award-winning journalist and bestselling author Caroline Overington is a lopsided thriller. The novel opens as finance hotshot Clare returns to small-town WA following the suicide of her father, who had been diagnosed with Parkinson’s. An aging lawyer’s mix-up means that her father’s considerable estate has been left to Clare’s mother, Eden, instead of his children, even though Eden vanished from their lives over 30 years ago. Clare begins probing into her mother’s absence; at the same time, the local cop starts asking questions about her father’s death. Narrated in chatty triplicate by Clare, her brother Aaron, and his daughter Cady, Looking for Eden gathers speed from the outset as we meet the family and begin delving into their backstory. Overington drops just enough tantalising hints that we know Clare will leave her high-powered job and partner in New York and that the story will go somewhere unexpected. However, when that pivot point comes, I found that the novel swerved too hard and too fast away from the intricate cold case readers may have been expecting, ultimately glossing over complex and traumatic content. Looking for Eden aims to captivate readers of Jane Harper and Liane Moriarty, and although it doesn’t quite reach the mark in delivery, it still offers a twisty read for those who enjoy Australian crime.