A Child's Book of True Crime

In a small town near Port Arthur in Tasmania in the mid-nineties, Kate Byrne is having an affair with the father of her most gifted student. As the young teacher's sexual life is awakened by the father in scenes of escalating eroticism, the guilt she feels towards the son is compounded. Meanwhile, Veronica, her lover's wife, has just published Murder at Black Swan Point, a true crime book about the brutal slaying of a young adulteress some years before, set in a nearby town. Kate becomes fixated on the unsolved crime of passion that occurred years earlier, less and less aware of her own reputation in the present. Is it her imagination, or is someone stalking her? Is she caught playing a game where she no longer knows the rules? Has her obsession with the crime aligned her fate with that of the murdered adulteress?

Short-listed for Orange Prize for Fiction 2002

“Funny, edgy and sparky as sherbet, Hooper’s novel lingers in the mind with all the sweetness and menace of childhood itself.” -- The Independent
“A striking, ambitious first novel...Hooper forces open her material so that it resonates beyond belief and she does this with...curiosity and instinctive grace.” -- The New York Times Book Review
“Ironic, moving, full of keen perceptions and striking sentences...a tour de force.” -- The Wall Street Journal

Chloe Hooper's most recent book is the bestselling The Arsonist: A Mind on Fire. The Tall Man: Death and Life on Palm Island won the Victorian, New South Wales, West Australian and Queensland Premiers’ Literary Awards, as well as the John Button Prize for Political Writing, and a Ned Kelly Award for crime writing. She is also the author of two acclaimed novels, A Child’s Book of True Crime and The Engagement. Kate Hosking is an Australian performer who has been narrating audiobooks for over 20 years. Her titles range from teenage fiction to adult non-fiction and everything in between. She is a musician, theatre performer and educator.

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