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- Contents Category: Fiction
- Custom Article Title: Estelle Tang reviews 'Hindsight' by Melanie Casey
- Review Article: Yes
- Article Title: Hindsight
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Cass Lehman keeps to herself – her mother and grandmother tell other residents of sleepy Jewel Bay that she is agoraphobic. Her real reason for staying in her house for the past nine years is that she has a terrifying kind of ‘retrocognition’: if Cass passes over a place where someone has died, she experiences their death. And death, as it turns out, is everywhere: on the street, at newly renovated pharmacies, and in teenagers’ trysting spots. The daughter and granddaughter of women who also have paranormal gifts, Cass has long believed she, and others, will be safer if she remains a recluse. But now, ‘on the wrong side of twenty-five’, she wants to experience more of life.
- Book 1 Title: Hindsight
- Book 1 Biblio: Pantera Press, $29.99 pb, 368 pp, 9781921997204
In a quiet laneway, a killer has struck. Detective Ed Dyson, still haunted by the disappearance of his wife and unborn child, is tasked to the case. Switching points of view – between Cass, the murderer, and the police investigation – Melanie Casey deftly handles several sets of emotions and motivations, which culminate in a satisfying dénouement. In the police sections, Casey skilfully evokes the camaraderie and tensions of a small-town police bureau, which become yet more pronounced when detectives from the big smoke become involved. The scenes are straightforward, and the plotting concise; there are many stylistic similarities between this book and the efficient episodes of television police procedurals.
Hindsight’s weaknesses are a villain who occasionally seems more comical than creepy, and an attraction between Cass and Dyson that isn’t plausible given the characters’ chemistry. These distractions do not, however, detract significantly from the gripping case or the personal battle that Cass must fight in order to put her power, and self, to positive use. Conventional in the best way, this confident début will have readers awake long into the night.
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