The Youngest Son (John Byrnes, Macmillan)

John Byrnes’s The Youngest Son follows the fortunes of three siblings from a working-class Sydney family in the 1930s and 40s. Bob, the titular youngest, naturally gets the largest share of the page count in his journey from street fighter to key figure in the city’s violent criminal underworld. His sister, Maureen, chasing a glamorous life, finds herself entangled in this same setting, while their older brother, John, is a golden boy destined for the priesthood. John’s storyline is effective as a counterpoint to those of his siblings, but his character is the most inscrutable; we often glimpse only the surface of his emotional turmoil. Short chapters told from various viewpoints help to maintain a page-turning pace. Byrnes’s previous crime thriller writing experience (Headland) is evidenced here in a skillfully constructed plot, in which minor characters and clues from early chapters reveal their full significance further on. Byrnes has faith in the reader’s intelligence, often preferring to imply a plot development rather than spell it out. While this technique can occasionally make the shifting alliances and backdoor deals of his underworld setting difficult to follow, it also allows him to deliver a masterful reveal in the novel’s final two words. With echoes of Thomas Keneally’s historical fiction and Markus Zusak’s tales of hardscrabble Sydney family life, The Youngest Son will expand Byrnes’s readership beyond that of his thriller debut.

Books+Publishing reviewer: Megan Koch is a writer and bookseller based in Adelaide. Books+Publishing is Australia’s number-one source of pre-publication book reviews.

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