Reviewed by Rod McLary
Kiara Lui returns in Jack Heath’s latest book in the Kill Your … series. Readers will remember her as the investigating officer from Kill Your Husbands when she was Constable Lui – now she is Detective Sergeant Lui; and this book is no less intriguing with plenty of twists which will test the mind of any reader. There is an additional link back to the first book in the series – Kill Your Brother – as Elise the protagonist in that book is now Kiara’s partner. Kill Your Brother was shortlisted in the best crime novel Ned Kelly Awards in 2021.
The story is set in the small fictitious town of Warrigal – not to be confused with the real town of Warragul in Victoria. It begins with Neville Adams, the head of the library services, falling from the roof of the library onto a bike rack below. Was it an accident, a suicide or murder? Fortunately DS Kiara Lui is right there when it happens as she is sorting out an altercation between two men on the library steps. The cause of the altercation reverberates through the story and its significance becomes more apparent as the narrative progresses.
But the real story is the death of Neville Adams – a man almost universally disliked. To establish what caused Adams to fall, DS Lui has no shortage of people to interview and leads to pursue. This allows for an exploration of the relationships between the key players and the intricate connections between them. There are as always various red herrings for DS Lui to consider and discard and small-town secrets to negotiate. And there are serious issues touched on as well – coercive control within intimate relationships and one character is blackmailed into a sexual relationship. These issues are addressed sensitively and compassionately.
The novel is divided into sections named by time as in ‘Wednesday’ or ‘Two Months Ago’ – each with an image of what seems to be a dead mouse. The significance of these images becomes clear as the narrative approaches its dénouement and there is a clue hidden there. The mouse images is the author’s playfulness shining through. Within each section, there are chapters named with a specific character as in ‘Kiara’ or ‘Kiara and Ben’ and the action in the chapter focusses on that person. The timeline is not strictly linear as there are flashbacks which provide some clarity to the motivation or mind-set of the characters.
One of the strengths of the novel is that, behind the investigation which rightly takes centre stage, there are the backstories of the various townspeople – the library staff, the store owners, the other police officers – all drawn with sympathy and affection. This is a crime novel you can enjoy reading and to add to that enjoyment is the author’s sense of humour. Jack Heath has the ability to make even the apparent villains of his novels entertaining and likeable [mostly] – think Timothy Blake of the Hangman series.
Kill Your Boss is an excellent crime novel and one which has elements of humour as well as in intricate plot full of twists and turns. Well recommended.
Kill Your Boss
[2025]
by Jack Heath
Allen and Unwin
ISBN: 978 176147 306 7
$34.99; 359pp