Category: CreateSpace Independent Publishing Platform

Austria, Author, Book review, CreateSpace Independent Publishing Platform, John Leake, Non-fiction, Publisher, Setting, true crime

‘Cold a Long Time: An Alpine Mystery’ by John Leake

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Non-fiction – Kindle edition; CreateSpace Independent Publishing Platform; 240 pages; 2012.

More than a decade ago I read a riveting true crime book by John Leake called The Vienna Woods Killer: A Writer’s Double Life, about a murderer in jail who convinced Austria’s literary elite that he was rehabilitated — though he was anything but.

Until recently (when I recommended this book in a  6 Degrees of Separation post), it had never occurred to me to see what else this talented journalist might have written.

A quick perusal of the internet revealed that Leake had written another true crime book, also set in Austria, which he had self-published in 2012 because it was too niche for any mainstream publisher to pick up.

I purchased it on Kindle and found myself immersed in a strange and mysterious story about an enormous cover-up that seemed too unbelievable to be true.

Mystery in the alps

The book focuses on the mysterious disappearance in 1989 of a young Canadian man on holiday in Austria and the subsequent 20-year search his parents conducted in a bid to find out what happened to him.

Duncan MacPherson was a talented professional ice hockey player who had accepted a player-coaching role in Scotland. En route to his new employment, he visited Continental Europe to catch up with friends and do some solo travelling, but after being spotted snowboarding on a beginner slope he was never seen again.

His parents, Lynda and Bob, who were worried about the lack of communication, alerted authorities. Help was not particularly forthcoming. The pair flew to Europe to see what they could unearth themselves, but police and consular staff were unhelpful and dismissive.

When they eventually found Duncan’s car six weeks later at the Stubai Glacier, a popular ski resort near Innsbruck, it was difficult to understand why no one had noticed it; there were no other vehicles around and it stuck out like a sore thumb.

Unfortunately, as Leake’s detailed book reveals, this was the first of many “clues” that were ignored by authorities, which included the ski resort, police, search-and-rescue staff and forensic specialists. Over the next 20 years, Duncan’s parents logged a never-ending succession of blunders, mistakes and concealments that suggested not everyone was being honest with them, which begged the question: what were people trying to hide?

Painstaking detail

Cold A Long Time covers the entire case in painstaking detail. In true detective style, Leake does an enormous amount of investigative research, interviews experts, local law enforcement and almost everyone he can who is connected with the case, to suggest what happened to Duncan and to explain why his disappearance was covered up — and by whom.

It is a compelling read. It’s shocking in places, not least the appalling ways in which the MacPhersons are treated by almost everyone they meet; their concerns dismissed, played down or simply ignored, their pursuit of justice thwarted at every turn. The one forensic doctor who befriends them and earns their trust turns out to have an agenda that did not have their best interests at heart.

If nothing else, this story, with all its twists and turns and its series of appalling mistakes and concealments, is testament to a mother’s love for her son and her enduring patience, tenacity and courage to uncover the truth about his disappearance. There is heartbreak and frustration and anger and disbelief on almost every page. It’s a book full of emotion and yet it’s written in a clear, detached voice, albeit one that is eloquent and compassionate, one that actually moved me to tears by the time I got to the end.

Cold A Long Time won a Bronze Medal in the True Crime category of the 2012 Independent Publisher Awards. It is an excellent read and one that will stay with me for a long time.

Australia, Author, Book lists, Book review, Chip Cheek, CreateSpace Independent Publishing Platform, crime/thriller, Fiction, literary fiction, London, Mulholland Books, Non-fiction, Publisher, Rob Hunter, Sabine Durrant, Setting, true crime, USA, Weidenfeld & Nicolson

3 page-turning reads by Chip Cheek, Sabine Durrant and Rob Hunter

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Looking for a quick read, something that’s compelling and difficult to put down?

Here’s three — a literary novel, a psychological thriller and a true crime story — that I’ve read recently that may well fit the bill.

‘Cape May’ by Chip Cheek

Fiction – hardcover; W&N; 272 pages; 2019. Review copy courtesy of the publisher.

This stylish and accomplished debut novel is a brilliant evocation of 1950s America (one of my favourite settings) and is highly reminiscent of Richard Yates in tone and theme with a smattering of F. Scott Fitzgerald thrown in for good measure.

It tells the story of a young couple, Henry and Effie, on honeymoon in Cape May, a seaside resort at the tip of southern New Jersey. It’s out of season and the couple appear to have the entire town and beach to themselves, but then they notice lights on in a house just down the street and find themselves drawn into the strange world of a trio of intriguing characters: Clara, a socialite; Max, her wealthy playboy lover; and Alma, Max’s aloof and pretty half-sister. Over the course of the next couple of weeks, the newly married couple experience life lived on a whole new level — with numerous sailing trips, glamorous dinner parties and all-night drunken revelry — but this heady time comes at a cost, for seduction, betrayal and heartbreak await.

Compulsively readable, with great characters and snappy dialogue, Cape May begins as a sweet story of new love before it morphs into a seedy and sexually explicit tale of lust, desire and hedonism. It’s certainly not for the prudish, but as a fast-paced entertaining read — perfect for the beach or holiday — they don’t come much better than this. My only criticism, apart from the over-done sex scenes, is that the ending, charting the lives of Henry and Effie long after the honeymoon is over, feels slightly tacked on, but nonetheless this is a terrific page-turning read!

‘Under Your Skin’ by Sabine Durrant

Fiction – paperback; Mulholland Books; 320 pages; 2014.

Tautly written psychological thrillers featuring morally dubious characters don’t come much better than the ones penned by London-based writer Sabine Durrant. This is the third Durrant I’ve read (you can see previous ones here) and it certainly won’t be the last.

In Under Your Skin breakfast TV presenter Gaby Mortimer finds the body of a murdered woman lying in bushes when she is out on one of her early morning runs across Clapham Common. She does the right thing and calls the police, but later she is arrested for the crime, setting into motion a whole chain of events, which results in Gaby being hounded by the press, losing her job and then being ostracised by all who know her.

Written in the first person, present tense, the narrative moves along at a cracking pace as Gaby, a happily married middle-class working mother, tries to defend her innocence alone while her hedge fund husband heads abroad unaware of his wife’s predicament. There are lots of twists and turns in the plot and half the fun is guessing the would-be murderer — is it Gaby’s live-in nanny, her long-time stalker or one of the journalists she befriends to tell her side of the story? The denouement is suitably unexpected and shocking, making for a terrific end to a truly compelling read.

‘Day 9 at Wooreen: Kidnapped with nine Children — A True Account of the Crime that Shocked Australia’ by Rob Hunter

Non-fiction – paperback; CreateSpace Independent Publishing Platform; 234 pages; 2018.

In 1977, not far from the small Australian town I grew up in, an entire primary school — one teacher and nine students — were kidnapped at gun point from Wooreen in South Gippsland. The kidnapper, Edwin John Eastwood, had escaped prison and carried out a similar kidnapping (of another remote one-teacher school) some five years earlier.

This audacious and shocking crime is told from the point of view of the teacher, Rob Hunter, who was nine days into his first job after finishing university. It’s a gripping and carefully written account of what would be a terrifying experience for anyone, let alone a “green” teacher with nine youngsters under his care.

Though the story is very much focused on the frightening minute-by-minute events of the two-day ordeal, Hunter weaves in his thoughts about what it is like to survive a traumatic event and how it shaped the rest of his life. He now travels to schools teaching students how to cope with their own hurts and traumas (you can read about that here).

For me, reading this book answered a lot of questions about exactly what happened and where —all the places mentioned here are totally familiar to me. And though I went to secondary school with several of the survivors, what happened to them was never something openly discussed. This book also made me realise what it must have been like for my own dad who was a teacher at a one-teacher school around the time of Eastwood’s first kidnapping: every sound of a strange car door slamming outside must have sent the safety radar into overdrive!

My copy of Day 9 at Wooreen is self-published, but I believe the book has been picked up by Wilkinson Publishing in Australia and is due for reprinting soon, but you may be able to pick up a copy via Amazon.

You can find out more about the Wooreen kidnappings via this short YouTube clip:

 

Have you read any page-turning reads lately?