Review by Stacey O’Carroll
Author: Garry Disher
Publisher: Text Publishing
RRP: $32.99
Release Date: 3 April 2024
“Found the bitch”
A rural antiques store is not where you would normally expect to see an Australian crime-thriller set. Yet, in Australian crime writer Garry Disher’s latest stand-alone novel, Sanctuary, his protagonist finds a safe place in a small town’s antique store.
“She’d been calling herself Grace for a while now. Too long, probably. She’d be safer using one of the other names, of which she had a few stashed away, culled from death notices and gravestones over the years.”
In Sanctuary, career thief Grace has escaped the city after a threatening run-in with a fellow criminal. Stopping in a rural town where she has hidden a previous stash, Grace comes across Mandel’s Antiques. When the owner, Erin, hires her, Grace sees a chance for a new life, a normal job and the possibility of a place to call home. However, her safe new life soon becomes fractured when dangerous men come to town searching for Erin and Grace. Their lives threatened, Grace uses her skills to help keep Erin safe. Can she save her new friend and herself in time?
“She heard Erin Mandel move about the shop: the swish of her loose-fitting clothing; the sound of a cabinet door opening and metal objects clinking.”
While I am not a regular reader of crime or thriller fiction, I was intrigued by Disher’s complex protagonist and the unusual location of Sanctuary. There is also something captivating about the isolated red dirt road on the cover that drew me into the novel. Had the Sanctuary been part of a series, I might not have given the story a chance.
Sanctuary begins in the second person, from the perspective of an unnamed individual who the reader discovers is extremely shady and potentially a criminal. Second person narration can be hit and miss, and while the choice is a little off-putting, the sense of ill-ease is intentional and works for the novel. Without giving much away, the red herring also benefits from this stylistic choice. From chapter two the story shifts to the more familiar third person narrative and the perspective of protagonist Grace.
“But Grace had come to understand that, for Erin, the world had shrunk to the dimensions of her house, her yard and her little shop.”
Disher’s Sanctuary builds to a fast-paced, page-turner that has an unexpected plot twist that elevates the novel out of the expected genre conventions. While Disher has not converted me to the genre, I enjoyed being taken along for the ride. Sanctuary is for lovers of Disher’s thrillers and those who enjoy Australian crime fiction.