“Kate Kemp has said the purpose of her novel is to ask whether a woman can change her life if she’s not happy with her lot, and is the answer different for different women?” writes book reviewer ANNA CREER.  

Although she now lives in the UK, Australian writer Kate Kemp lived in Canberra as a child in the 1970s, which she has described as a fascinating period in Australian history, when the country was “on the cusp of change, culturally, economically, socially, politically”.

Kemp was recovering from surgery after cancer, when she decided to write her debut novel, The Grapevine. She thought of her mother, for whom her treatment had not been available. 

“Writing this is, in a way, me travelling back in time to meet my mum and just say: ’Hey, what is it like to be a woman here?’”

As a result, Kemp set her novel in January 1979. The residents of Warrah Place are a close-knit group. Nine houses in a cul-de-sac back on to the bush, with a nature strip in the middle called “the island”.

“Every now and again, people came from their houses and converged there. It was the quickest and easiest way to get the rumour mill fired up”.

The previous winter, the Mariettis had moved into the Italian House, named after the Italians who had built it with “its tall, pale pillars”. It was already the subject of gossip, but the Mariettis compound the antagonism of their neighbours. The Warrah Place grapevine calls them “posh”. Mr Marietti works at the embassy. They have “a new car, slick clothes, big hair-dos. They thought nothing of plane trips and everything of themselves”.

All except their handsome, charming son, Antonio, who makes friends easily, especially among the women of Warrah Place.

Twelve-year-old Tammy is fascinated by Antonio. Tammy spies on everyone in Warrah Place, watching and listening, trying to make sense of adult behavior, but Antonio becomes “her favourite thing to watch”.

But then a foot is discovered in the bush at the back of Warrah Place, which is quickly identified as Antonio’s. It’s obvious he’s been murdered and dismembered.

The Grapevine is a whydunnit rather than a whodunnit because the murderer appears on the first page. Kemp has said the purpose of her novel is to ask whether a woman can change her life if she’s not happy with her lot, and is the answer different for different women? 

The Grapevine has already received some critical acclaim, but my problem with the novel is that Kemp’s Canberra is not the Canberra I remember. We too moved into a Canberra suburb in the late 1970s, into a house in a cul-de-sac that backs on to the bush. Kemp has either ignored or forgotten the rhythms of a Canberra summer: the exodus to the coast; the constant barbecues and the afternoons at the local swimming pool.

Historical fiction needs a degree of verisimilitude for it to completely succeed.

ELLY Griffith’s latest novel The Frozen People mixes crime and historical fiction with a dose of HG Wells.

Griffiths is best known for her incredibly popular Dr Ruth Galloway Mysteries. However, the last in the series, The Last Remains was published in 2023.

Now Griffiths introduces a new main character Ali Dawson, aged 50. She has a degree in history, has had three husbands, one son and is a career policewoman. 

Ali works for a cold case unit, which uses time travel to search for evidence of miscarriages of justice. There are strict rules on time travel. “Watch. Bear witness. Don’t interact. Stay safe”. Usually the team is invisible and only stays in the past for a couple of hours.

However, for her latest assignment Ali has to travel back to 1850 to discover whether the great-great-great grandfather of a government minister was guilty of murdering an artist’s model.

Cain Templeton had been a patron of the arts, supporting struggling artists and their models, letting them live in his house rent free. He was also a member of a club, “a really gruesome group called the Collectors, and to be a member, you had to kill a woman”.

When Ali arrives in 1850, she discovers, as she approaches Cain Templeton’s house, that she can actually be seen and then that the gate she must use to return to the present won’t open.

Griffiths describes The Frozen People as “a new venture for me, stepping into the unknown, terrifying and exhilarating”. 

The result is a strange novel, full of fascinating facts about daily life in the Victorian era, mixed with bizarre plot twists and an ending that reveals a promised sequel. Prepare to suspend disbelief.