In 1960s Sydney, a killer stalks the streets – and one cop will risk everything to stop him.
The calling card of the killer known as ‘The Jeweller’ is as elegant as it is gruesome: a pair of ring fingers, separated from their owners, encircled by a band of wire, delivered directly to Senior Detective Joe Capello. When the Jeweller taunts Joe and his team into meeting him in the diseased grounds of Barren Park, the consequences of that evening will have permanent repercussions for everyone involved. And for Joe, it gets personal.
Two years later, Joe is off the force, but no less obsessed with the Jeweller and his horrific crimes. When a new parcel arrives at his home, Joe is invited back onto the task force and given the opportunity to redeem himself. But vindication relies on Joe finally capturing The Jeweller and now he has to decide if he’s willing to do what it takes – whatever it takes – to finally bring this case to a close.
B. Michael Radburn is an award-winning writer of short stories, novels and screen plays. He is also the founder of Dark Press Publications and the former editor of the Australian Horror and Fantasy Magazine. So, to say he knows this thrilling genre is an understatement. For fans of Greg Woodland, Matt Nable, and Chris Hammer comes Barren Grounds, a twisting thriller about the past, the present, and the hope of a future.
The novel moves between young Joseph Capello’s early days in Australia, having fled Mussolin’s Italy with his parents, to an immigrant camp in Victoria. Life is tough. We soon learn Joseph is isolated and his parents both struggle with their relocation. There’s also an immediate sense of foreboding as his mother teaches him the dual meaning of his name (no spoilers here, though). From here we cut to Joe Capello in 1962, a cop who’s haunted by a killer known as ‘The Jeweller’.
Barren Grounds astutely deals a case that has driven Joe to distraction, continuing to haunt him, and ultimately demands he return to the force. The other adversary is the more silent and sinister Cloakman, a malevolent force of the past haunting Joe from his childhood trauma. It’s suspenseful and riveting. Radburn does a great job of recreating the atmosphere of the day, as Joe grapples with the hold his past has on him in order to confront his present and take hold of his future.
Fast paced with a nightmarish undertone, Radburn cleverly interweaves flashbacks from Joe’s childhood that propel the adult Joe’s plot forward. Full points for a fabulous ending twist, which, if you read closely, Radburn cleverly planted the seeds of right at the very beginning. This is a wonderful immersive read by a magician of a novelist.
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