{"id":159715,"date":"2022-01-27T11:13:26","date_gmt":"2022-01-27T00:13:26","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.booktopia.com.au\/blog\/?p=159715"},"modified":"2022-02-10T15:04:25","modified_gmt":"2022-02-10T04:04:25","slug":"review-the-cane-by-maryrose-cuskelly","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.booktopia.com.au\/blog\/2022\/01\/27\/review-the-cane-by-maryrose-cuskelly\/","title":{"rendered":"REVIEW: The Cane by Maryrose Cuskelly"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
\"The<\/a><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n

The Cane<\/a><\/em><\/strong> is the award-winning non-fiction author Maryrose Cuskelly\u2019s first leap into fiction, and we are all the beneficiaries. Reminiscent of Jane Harper\u2019s The Dry<\/em> and Chris Hammer\u2019s Scrublands<\/em>, The Cane<\/em> is similarly set in a small Australian rural town where an unsolved crime turns the community upside down.<\/p>\n\n\n

\"Maryrose<\/a>

Maryrose Cuskelly<\/p><\/div>\n

It\u2019s the 1970s and it doesn\u2019t take much to create outrage and scandal – like a new suspiciously anti-establishment teacher at the local high school giving students copies of the banned Little Red Book.<\/p>\n\n\n

Sixteen-year-old Janet McClymont disappears without a trace, while her handbag and contents are left strewn in the cane fields. Was she kidnapped? Murdered? Or did she simply run away to Brisbane? After two months, the residents of Quala can think of nothing else and continue to search for clues of her whereabouts while police investigate all leads, including the decade-old death of another teenage girl which may or may not be related.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This is an evocatively written, atmospheric novel of landscape and of rural town life where everyone knows each other\u2019s business. One can feel the humidity and searing heat of far north Queensland, its isolation and uniqueness. As we are introduced to the plethora of townsfolk, potential suspects and subplots, the story\u2019s pace quickens and tensions rise, particularly as we reach the denouement when the cane fields are burnt for harvesting. The action on multiple fronts becomes enjoyably palpable.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u2014The Cane<\/a><\/em> by Maryrose Cuskelly (Allen & Unwin) is out on the 1st of February.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"Australian<\/a><\/figure><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

‘An evocatively written, atmospheric novel of landscape and of rural town life.’<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":41,"featured_media":159741,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"spay_email":""},"categories":[6678],"tags":[486,12337,721,723,9480,14210,4484,14209],"acf":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/www.booktopia.com.au\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/01\/TheCane-Social.png","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.booktopia.com.au\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/159715"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.booktopia.com.au\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.booktopia.com.au\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.booktopia.com.au\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/41"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.booktopia.com.au\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=159715"}],"version-history":[{"count":18,"href":"https:\/\/www.booktopia.com.au\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/159715\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":160689,"href":"https:\/\/www.booktopia.com.au\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/159715\/revisions\/160689"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.booktopia.com.au\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/159741"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.booktopia.com.au\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=159715"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.booktopia.com.au\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=159715"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.booktopia.com.au\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=159715"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}