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mirandahopeshea's review against another edition
mysterious
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Plot
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
- Flaws of characters a main focus? No
2.0
fiddle_leaf_fig's review
adventurous
dark
mysterious
tense
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Plot
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
3.5
kcfromaustcrime's review
5.0
Given the juxtaposition of this review, and my recent one for THE STONING, I probably should mention that Aoife Clifford was the author I was discussing rural noir versus rural crime with. To my eye, Clifford is one of the great writers of rural crime in Australia at the moment, and she's right when she says the difference between her books and the more noirish styled ones like THE STONING is her self-professed affection, and sense of hope for the small towns that she sets her action in.
WHEN WE FALL is the story of Alex Tillerson and her mother and the small coastal town of Merritt, as much as it is the story of two murdered women. Alex is back in town for some very complicated reasons - a pending divorce, and a career as a barrister that's tanking; her mother's gentle slip into dementia requiring some difficult decisions to be made; and there's family history in Merritt that's complicated and challenging for all. The quote from the blurb sums it up beautifully:
When Alex and her mother make a shocking find on the beach one morning, the local police seem to be almost desperate to call it an accidental death, but there are whispers around town, and there's some odd connections between Maxine McFarlane, the latest victim, and the death of Bella Greggs a year earlier. She was found at the bottom of a ravine, despite having drowned in salt water. Maxine was found on the beach, supposedly drowned but her death quickly becomes more complicated as well. Nobody has ever explained the black feathers found with both bodies.
Cleverly interwoven with the deaths of these young women are many current day issues, from environmental activism, climate change, addiction, forced adoption, and the prejudice and unemployment that seems to blight so many small Australian towns these days. Elegantly plotted, tightly paced and littered with red herrings, readers are going to be left adjusting guesses at motive, and possible perpetrators right from the outset, with a lot of people - locals and incomers - with a lot of secrets to hide.
Aoife Clifford really writes descriptions of place, people and impact well. As with earlier novels, there's a clever juxtaposition of architecture and atmosphere, something, somewhere in the location that speaks to the central theme - in this case a lighthouse that looms, creating dark corners, and then shining bright, clear light in them. There are problems in her small town Australia locations, but there is always that sense of hope, and affection that peaks through. Her characters are beautifully nuanced and complicated, many of them with a sneaking sense of hope: that they didn't do it; or they will get to the truth; and will find a way of living a good life, in a place that deserves a second go.
https://www.austcrimefiction.org/review/when-we-fall-aoife-clifford
WHEN WE FALL is the story of Alex Tillerson and her mother and the small coastal town of Merritt, as much as it is the story of two murdered women. Alex is back in town for some very complicated reasons - a pending divorce, and a career as a barrister that's tanking; her mother's gentle slip into dementia requiring some difficult decisions to be made; and there's family history in Merritt that's complicated and challenging for all. The quote from the blurb sums it up beautifully:
‘It isn’t strangers you need to worry about here. Blood lines run deep and in unexpected places. Every victim, every accused, we’ll know. The past runs alongside us all the time. Some days it spills into the open.’
When Alex and her mother make a shocking find on the beach one morning, the local police seem to be almost desperate to call it an accidental death, but there are whispers around town, and there's some odd connections between Maxine McFarlane, the latest victim, and the death of Bella Greggs a year earlier. She was found at the bottom of a ravine, despite having drowned in salt water. Maxine was found on the beach, supposedly drowned but her death quickly becomes more complicated as well. Nobody has ever explained the black feathers found with both bodies.
Cleverly interwoven with the deaths of these young women are many current day issues, from environmental activism, climate change, addiction, forced adoption, and the prejudice and unemployment that seems to blight so many small Australian towns these days. Elegantly plotted, tightly paced and littered with red herrings, readers are going to be left adjusting guesses at motive, and possible perpetrators right from the outset, with a lot of people - locals and incomers - with a lot of secrets to hide.
Aoife Clifford really writes descriptions of place, people and impact well. As with earlier novels, there's a clever juxtaposition of architecture and atmosphere, something, somewhere in the location that speaks to the central theme - in this case a lighthouse that looms, creating dark corners, and then shining bright, clear light in them. There are problems in her small town Australia locations, but there is always that sense of hope, and affection that peaks through. Her characters are beautifully nuanced and complicated, many of them with a sneaking sense of hope: that they didn't do it; or they will get to the truth; and will find a way of living a good life, in a place that deserves a second go.
https://www.austcrimefiction.org/review/when-we-fall-aoife-clifford
cardica's review against another edition
5.0
They may thwart our escape by land or sea, but the sky is surely open to us: we will go that way. Under an oppressive sky, take the middle way, lest the moisture weigh down your wings, or the sun scorch them. Summoning the art of Dutch masters, ancient poets and present day foibles, ‘When We Fall’ is an elegantly modern small-town mystery painted in secrets, where the brushstrokes reward you for tracing them.
Alex Tillerson has returned to her small hometown of Merritt to help her mother, Denny, deal with her recent dementia diagnosis. Alex wants to get Denny into care and sell the house, but her mother’s lifelong headstrong-verging confidence is proving obstinate. One granite-skied day’s walk out on the beach uncovers a severed limb, a sneakered foot with the tattoo of a curled black feather on its ankle. The local cops, led by the appropriately named ‘King Kelly’, show suspicious disinterest, as is often the way in small-town-noir. The case echoes, or perhaps continues, the dramatic disappearance of an environmentalist in the town years ago. The environmentalist, Bella Greggs, had been found drowned in a freshwater creek with saltwater in her lungs. The foot belongs to a local art teacher and kayaker named Maxine McFarlane, whose body was found in the ocean with empty lungs. Both were adorned with the iconography of black feathers, and both times that iconography was severed from the corpse.
Urbanity nips at Merritt’s heels, with big-money developers ravenous for untamed land, and a big-city detective in-town who is perhaps working too closely with the local cops. Alex, too, is taking a restless break from a dwindling big-city legal career and a failed marriage. Alex finds her hometown dripping with questions about her own life, her unknown father, her mother’s upbringing, and the threat they will all disappear as Denny’s dementia worsens. Alex’s search for answers and her appetite for justice reveal that in a small town like Merritt, it’s not just proximity that ties people together.
The canvas Aoife Clifford adorns with Alex’s story is tightly woven, blending allegories, philosophies, and histories together through deceptively simple devices. The novel is named for an exhibition at the local museum that speaks to one great fall in our history. You might be forgiven, at first, for assuming it’s a quiet metafictional nod to the book’s being a book, but if you read on, it might end up speaking substantially more. The two lead victims, Maxine and Bella, art teacher and student respectively, lend us another avenue into the local arts community. Maxine was working on an exhibition at the local gallery shortly before her death that could hold the key to unravelling both crimes, but both artistic and detectivistic pieces are missing. Maxine’s specialty was Dutch Golden Age art, and early you find out she was often contracted to create stunning replicas. My 18-year-old self, who had until this point been at the back of my mind, quietly mulling over the iconography of the murders between research on an essay about Dutch art, grew ecstatic. Here was a mystery that not only echoed the fascination I’d once poured two years of my pre-academic life into, but was using it to orient the game my present self loves to play. Could it be that more secrets would be buried away in the briskly detailed descriptions of the paintings in the book?
‘When We Fall’ rewards you for trying to solve its mystery by being such an incredibly honest novel that reveals the black-featherd breadcrumb trail just as you’ve had enough time to ponder over its clues. It confidently uses that same trail to get you thinking about how its characters got to where they are without making them feel like pieces on a gameboard. Best of all, by my score, a re-read of this book soaks in all the quiet clues, the parallel mirrors, and rhyming crimes. ‘When We Fall’ is one of those books that leaves you wishing to open up about the spoilers, gush about the intricacies, and something about its conclusions. If I hadn’t been on ABC RN’s ‘The Bookshelf’ for the novel, it probably would have been shoehorned onto your Murder Mystery World Tour this year. Maybe we will, some time!
‘When We Fall’ provides a story both straight and twisty, both concise and soaked in atmosphere, both challenging and accessible. Its characters feel incredibly authentic, but also incredibly authentic, striding across the literary stage larger than life but just the right size. It’s not the sort of story that leaves you spending months unpicking layered, complex ambiguities after reading it, but it is the sort of story that will leave you appreciating the tiny details that lend to the realism and meaning of the novel. It’s a bit like the Dutch Masters in that way. Turn the book over in your mind, and you’ll find that branch was a portent of death.
‘When We Fall’ by Aoife Clifford earns my honourable recommendation for Death of the Reader’s Review Season 2022. The book is out with Ultimo Press, and thank you to both Ultimo Press and ABC Radio National for providing copies. If you’re curious to find out more about the book, both the ABC RN ‘The Bookshelf’ episode and my interview with Aoife Clifford on Death of the Reader are podcasted.
Alex Tillerson has returned to her small hometown of Merritt to help her mother, Denny, deal with her recent dementia diagnosis. Alex wants to get Denny into care and sell the house, but her mother’s lifelong headstrong-verging confidence is proving obstinate. One granite-skied day’s walk out on the beach uncovers a severed limb, a sneakered foot with the tattoo of a curled black feather on its ankle. The local cops, led by the appropriately named ‘King Kelly’, show suspicious disinterest, as is often the way in small-town-noir. The case echoes, or perhaps continues, the dramatic disappearance of an environmentalist in the town years ago. The environmentalist, Bella Greggs, had been found drowned in a freshwater creek with saltwater in her lungs. The foot belongs to a local art teacher and kayaker named Maxine McFarlane, whose body was found in the ocean with empty lungs. Both were adorned with the iconography of black feathers, and both times that iconography was severed from the corpse.
Urbanity nips at Merritt’s heels, with big-money developers ravenous for untamed land, and a big-city detective in-town who is perhaps working too closely with the local cops. Alex, too, is taking a restless break from a dwindling big-city legal career and a failed marriage. Alex finds her hometown dripping with questions about her own life, her unknown father, her mother’s upbringing, and the threat they will all disappear as Denny’s dementia worsens. Alex’s search for answers and her appetite for justice reveal that in a small town like Merritt, it’s not just proximity that ties people together.
The canvas Aoife Clifford adorns with Alex’s story is tightly woven, blending allegories, philosophies, and histories together through deceptively simple devices. The novel is named for an exhibition at the local museum that speaks to one great fall in our history. You might be forgiven, at first, for assuming it’s a quiet metafictional nod to the book’s being a book, but if you read on, it might end up speaking substantially more. The two lead victims, Maxine and Bella, art teacher and student respectively, lend us another avenue into the local arts community. Maxine was working on an exhibition at the local gallery shortly before her death that could hold the key to unravelling both crimes, but both artistic and detectivistic pieces are missing. Maxine’s specialty was Dutch Golden Age art, and early you find out she was often contracted to create stunning replicas. My 18-year-old self, who had until this point been at the back of my mind, quietly mulling over the iconography of the murders between research on an essay about Dutch art, grew ecstatic. Here was a mystery that not only echoed the fascination I’d once poured two years of my pre-academic life into, but was using it to orient the game my present self loves to play. Could it be that more secrets would be buried away in the briskly detailed descriptions of the paintings in the book?
‘When We Fall’ rewards you for trying to solve its mystery by being such an incredibly honest novel that reveals the black-featherd breadcrumb trail just as you’ve had enough time to ponder over its clues. It confidently uses that same trail to get you thinking about how its characters got to where they are without making them feel like pieces on a gameboard. Best of all, by my score, a re-read of this book soaks in all the quiet clues, the parallel mirrors, and rhyming crimes. ‘When We Fall’ is one of those books that leaves you wishing to open up about the spoilers, gush about the intricacies, and something about its conclusions. If I hadn’t been on ABC RN’s ‘The Bookshelf’ for the novel, it probably would have been shoehorned onto your Murder Mystery World Tour this year. Maybe we will, some time!
‘When We Fall’ provides a story both straight and twisty, both concise and soaked in atmosphere, both challenging and accessible. Its characters feel incredibly authentic, but also incredibly authentic, striding across the literary stage larger than life but just the right size. It’s not the sort of story that leaves you spending months unpicking layered, complex ambiguities after reading it, but it is the sort of story that will leave you appreciating the tiny details that lend to the realism and meaning of the novel. It’s a bit like the Dutch Masters in that way. Turn the book over in your mind, and you’ll find that branch was a portent of death.
‘When We Fall’ by Aoife Clifford earns my honourable recommendation for Death of the Reader’s Review Season 2022. The book is out with Ultimo Press, and thank you to both Ultimo Press and ABC Radio National for providing copies. If you’re curious to find out more about the book, both the ABC RN ‘The Bookshelf’ episode and my interview with Aoife Clifford on Death of the Reader are podcasted.
madeleinekl's review
3.0
Not the most thrilling entry into the 'person goes back to their small Aussie hometown and becomes embroiled in a crime/dark family secrets' cannon, but very readable and well-written, if a bit predictable,
helendeu's review
4.0
This audiobook was my first by this author and it won’t be my last. When Alex’s mum (who suffers Alzheimer’s) finds a leg washed up on a beach, Alex becomes involved after the apparent lack of proper investigation by local police. From there, we’re taken into the town of Merritt and begin to untangle the web that links the leg to a cold case.
Clifford wrote such great characters that infuriated me (hello King Kelly) or made me laugh; that is, they felt very real. There were quite a few that could be hard to keep track of until reference was made to remind us who they were. It didn’t take away from the story (and this could have been because I was listening on audio). There were many twists and turns, red herrings and subplots that kept the book moving along. I love working out the murderer in any mystery. This one was tricky but I can say I was partly right (you’ll understand if you’ve read it).
I really enjoyed this book and look forward to reading Clifford’s back catalogue.
fasmina's review
5.0
Another great murder mystery with a female protagonist with a good plot. Although the first few chapters dragged a little bit, the story picked up quickly and things started to turn interesting.
Alex returns to her mum’s ancestral home which the latter abandoned in the past. About to be divorced, with a career slump and in a dispute with her mother who is losing her memory fast, Alex gets herself involved in solving the mystery behind the death of an art teacher.
Murder mysteries set in small communities have some unique elements, including too many characters. But luckily When We Fall spared us of all the confusion by having fewer yet memorable characters who contributed to the story. As always, there were people who did not like her interference into the case but they had a solid motive and didn’t feel like plot points added as an afterthought. While the mystery comes to an ending with some unexpected twists, there was closure for almost all characters, and not in an unbelievable way too.
This is another book that will keep you up all night, calling out to be finished.
Alex returns to her mum’s ancestral home which the latter abandoned in the past. About to be divorced, with a career slump and in a dispute with her mother who is losing her memory fast, Alex gets herself involved in solving the mystery behind the death of an art teacher.
Murder mysteries set in small communities have some unique elements, including too many characters. But luckily When We Fall spared us of all the confusion by having fewer yet memorable characters who contributed to the story. As always, there were people who did not like her interference into the case but they had a solid motive and didn’t feel like plot points added as an afterthought. While the mystery comes to an ending with some unexpected twists, there was closure for almost all characters, and not in an unbelievable way too.
This is another book that will keep you up all night, calling out to be finished.
judefire33's review
dark
emotional
informative
mysterious
sad
tense
medium-paced
4.0
Hugest of thanks to James at Ultimo Press for sending me a copy of When We Fall.
I'm always on the lookout for new Australian crime fiction and authors, it amazes me how there are so many talented authors in one Country! And I love Outback Noir and Australian novels.
When We Fall is a griping novel that's part crime fiction and also literary fiction. Set in a smalltown in Australia with all the prejudices and rumours that exist in these towns, we meet Alex Tillerson a Barrister who has had to come back to her home town from the city to look after Denny, her Mum who is suffering from Dementia. On the first morning they are taking a walk along the shoreline when Denny stumbles onto a find that completely changes the whole reason for Alex's stay in Merritt.
This is a wonderfully descriptive story that covers the emotional side of dealing with ageing parents, and the effects of murder on a small town. Alexi s driven by her compassion and sense of righteousness to help in the search for a murderer, which leads her into danger.
I loved When We Fall, there's a diverse set of characters and they are very well observed, I found this an easy read and the plot was excellent, keeping me guessing all the way until the end. If you like small town Australia and all the claustrophobia, atmosphere and prejudices that go with it and strong female lead characters then this will be the book for you.
A very solid 4 star read.