Mandy Beaumont is the author of The Furies and Wild Fearless Chests. She’s been nominated for a slew of awards for her writing including the Stella Prize.

Mandy’s latest novel is The Thrill of It.

*Content Warning for Violence Against Women*

In the late 1980’s Sydney is a long way from the global city we know today. From the beach to the Mountains awash with fluro tracksuits, hypercolour t-shirts, thongs and walkmans the harbour city can still feel like a village in your own little patch 

Emmerson gets to enjoys the best of it, with harbour views courtesy of a legacy from her grandmother, the socialite and designer Marlowe Kerr.

But when the body of a woman in her eighties is discovered in the northern beaches the city will be thrown into chaos. Older residents lock themselves in their homes for fear the killer may strike again. 

Emmerson herself is thrust back to another legacy of her adored grandmother. Marlowe was killed in a strikingly similar way. A case that was never solved.

Emmerson knows the police won’t make the link, and she doesn’t trust them to. But what does that mean for Marlowe and this other woman. More importantly, if the killer has returned after twelve years, could they kill again? 

—

Mandy Beaumont has taken as the basis for her novel a series of murders committed against women in 1989-90 in Sydney. At the time the press dubbed the murderer ‘Granny Killer’, thereby robbing the women of their identities and reducing them to a vicious parody of their age. In Beaumont’s story it is the killer who will be reduced while the women are given their due and through the fictional figure of Marlowe Kerr, celebrated for all the mess and wonder of their storied lives.

The Thrill of It has all the promise of true crime and mystery in its set up, yet is neither and offers a wholly original beast. Simultaneously thriller and social critique, a takedown of the establishment that failed these women and as Mandy describes it, a love-story between a granddaughter and the grandmother taken too soon.

The character of Emmerson defies the literary conventions she seems destined to embody. As we begin the narrative she is listless, but quickly galvanises herself into action with the discovery of the first body. Emmerson has dreams of entering the police academy and avenging her grandmother, but these desires cannot simply overcome the fact that the late eighties was still dealing with gender equity (not that we’ve solved that one yet).

The narrative swings between Emmerson’s story and the dark journey of the killer. In a grim but effective juxtaposition we travel along with the killer on his crimes and are given insight into the twisted psychology by which he justifies and exonerates himself. It’s a tremendous feat to carry such dark and violent impulses and Beaumont balances it without becoming gratuitous.

The novel works within the historical setting and follows the case, whilst maintaining the distance of fiction. It allows us to see the problems that existed at the time and how limited perspective and oversimplification lead to so much death.

I loved Mandy Beaumont’s The Furies for its righteous anger and driven storytelling. The Thrill of It offers the reader a completely different sort of tale, propulsed by the same energy and spirit.