Reviewed by Ian Lipke
Detective Sergeant Anastasia Brown suffers heartbreak and humiliation. Her ex-boyfriend cannot handle her promotion above him, and her superior officers consider a woman in the force to be out of her place. Ana, upset as she is, welcomes the chance to do well in this new community where a man has been crucified and burnt and left to hang on a fence. Arcane symbols have been carved into the soles of his feet.
To add to the drama, Ana has to cope with a coven of witches who live in the scrub nearby. They take more than an active interest in Ana’s investigation. While the sergeant proves to be astute in her thinking, her actions rely on the support and guidance of Detective Senior Constable Harry Frost, a local who lives nearby with his boyfriend.
While the solving of the murder is intricate and demanding of the reader, the author shows a marked ability to weave some crude humour into the narrative. Early in the book, Ana strikes up a relationship with the marsupial when she accidentally runs over its mother. Having nothing suitable in which to wrap the baby, she stores it inside the blouse she is wearing. Easy to imagine the expression on Harry’s face as he exclaims, “Holy crap, what’ve you got here? Harry asked in a whisper, pulling the shirt back to expose a long tail curled around long feet.”
Copious examples of the character Ana refusing help from male policemen when it is offered, feature in the book. To a certain extent this practice is overdone. Her past experiences explain her present practices. She places her trust in several of the oddball characters that inhabit the community and tends to do so without hesitation.
Chapter 22 reveals a change in atmosphere. Ana is accepted by an increasing number of constables. An outside source reveals that, contrary to common perception, the witches’ coven was not exclusively female. This requires a re-orientation in thinking.
The author has strengths in her writing that can easily slip through unnoticed. Good examples are developments in the character of Bartley who suffers from no major sin but grinds away until the reader hates him as much as Ana does. Another example is the sixty-something receptionist. “Her bun was pulled so tight it looked like her forehead might split down the middle.” Sufficient information has been given to allow anyone associated with schools to identify her character.
The writer, Inessa Jackson, has demonstrated in this book that she has conquered the art of forward movement. Never does the writer hesitate. Never does she keep the writer hesitating, called on to decide whether the story is finished or deciding if there is more. Always there is a direction, hidden though the end must be. Each character has been designed a role and is recognised within that role. Jackson makes many of her characters ill-defined yet still obedient to the principle of forward movement. (I must hasten to add that the school principal is the exception. Ana spun to find a short, round and curly-haired woman in a pink gingham suit storming towards them.” Classic!)
This book is a gem!
Devil Mountain
(2026)
by Inessa Jackson
Affirm Press
ISBN:978 1 9234 1923 0
$34.99;336pp