The Bluff by Joanna Jenkins

City lawyer, Ruth Dawson, is not sure what to expect when she agrees to mind a legal office in a small, slow-moving rural town in the hinterland of eastern Australia for a few months. The name of the town, Myddle, could be a play on “middle”, implying “middle of the road”, a place that is ordinary, lacking in outstanding features and even “muddle “, where things are not seen clearly and truths are hidden behind veneers of normality. The bluff of the title is in beautiful native bushland overlooking the Clive River, part of a cattle station that has been in the same family for generations and is nearby to this town.

As the main narrator of this mystery, Ruth is seeking respite and a change of scenery after her city legal firm folds (to follow this thread, read Joanna Jenkins earlier book How to Kill a Client) and wonders how she will manage the many and varied matters that a country lawyer might be called upon to deal with. However she is not expecting to be caught up in a murder inquiry.

Ruth settles into small town life and, like the reader, becomes aware of currents below the surface of ordinary everyday life. She is visited by a woman desperate to find her missing seventeen-year-old daughter and finds that the local police constable is not at all interested in searching for her. She meets other locals, including the purse-lipped receptionist at her legal office, an indigenous youth facing prejudice and his hardworking mother, and catches up with a retired work colleague, his family and the enigmatic yoga teacher whom he has partnered up with. And she is introduced to the owners of the cattle station, Evie, a young woman deeply connected to the land through family ties and her husband, the charming, brash and breezy Dash, who sees the bluff as a possible site for an eco-tourism venture that could turn a profit for them.

The puzzle of the missing teenager is compounded by a violent death, apparently by a shotgun. Ruth was expecting to wrestle with unfamiliar legal processes of a more mundane nature and is instead now faced with the fallout of this murder, trying to decide who can be trusted and who she needs to protect.

The characters reveal themselves as Ruth slowly realises their motivations and discovers their secrets, while the reader gains other insights as some of the chapters are told from different characters’ perspectives. The inclusion of frequent WhatsApp chats with her son in London makes the story seem more contemporary and also gives Ruth more solidity, as she often seems just a conduit through which the story is revealed. As the chain of events unfolds, and new ways forward are determined for the many characters, tension is maintained all the way to the surprising twist at the very end. As a mystery, the story is competently orchestrated to keep this reader engaged and satisfied with the outcome.

However, it does offer more than just another Australian rural murder mystery. Jenkins touches on contemporary issues such as the violence of early settlement by white people, and the persistent racial prejudice towards indigenous people, particularly the youth. The bluff, this piece of native bushland, is at the centre of the story, and so land ownership, conservation, the environment and land development are also issues brought into play. Other very present concerns with regard to the legal and personal ramifications of sexual assault and gender politics of consent are also brought into the mix.

So, all in all, this novel is a murder mystery that felt very real and contemporary, having characters with secrets, and a plot with plenty of twists and turns. I found The Bluff an entertaining read with an acknowledgement of some current issues that may spark some thought, consideration and discussion.

Reviewer: Clare Lyon

Allen and Unwin