This is about the mysterious disappearance of a woman. Or is it?

Set in 1991, police arrive at Barney’s rental house to dig up the backyard looking for Ginny Lawson who has been missing for six years. Next door lives Leonie who was a close friend of Ginny’s and who eagerly awaits justice for her friend. She’d never liked Ginny’s brute of a husband who has already sold up and moved away and is married to someone else in QLD. Barney and Leonie as well as a number of neighbours are keenly watching proceedings hoping for a resolution.

This novel is much more than about the disappearance of Ginny. It’s also a study of people, their relationships and central to that is loss and grief.

Alternating between Barney’s and Leonie’s point of view, Throsby gently draws out their characters revealing who these two people are. Leonie cares for four-year old Joe who keeps asking for his mother. Barney parks outside of McDonalds to glimpse his estranged son who works there. Leonie was a good friend to Ginny lamenting how the police had ignored her initial concerns about her friend’s disappearance and Ginny’s brutish husband.

Throsby goads us into making assumptions about these two characters nudging us to think one thing then slowly revealing their backstories. I did however guess the connection quite early between the two.

It’s a slow-moving story, gently threading the everyday mundane of surviving loss, dealing with grief and attempting to move on. Much like unwrapping a many layered parcel wrapped, each one makes you love and feel for the characters understanding them until we are left with nothing but hope at the end.

“Leonie rinsed her tea mug and set it on the drying rack. She went back to the table and collected Joe’s milky bowl, ‘Uptown Girl’ was coming softly out of the radio.

‘I want to see my mum.’

‘Sweetheart,’ said Leonie, holding the bowl.”

The town of Clarke, populated with 13000 people is just big enough to have all the usual amenities, even a shopping plaza, the description of which is so well portrayed that I could visualise the bleakness of the 1991 recession.

The end is very neatly tied together, perhaps a little too coincidental, but this one is an engaging read and I loved the characters more than anything else. Beautifully written, it’s a very compelling read. Pick this one up when you can.