There’s a scene in the pilot of Succession when the Roy family leaves the patriarch’s birthday celebration for a game of softball, but instead of ambling into the backyard, or down to the local park, the privileged family members pile into a fleet of choppers and soar over the New York skyline. It’s a moment that encapsulates the appeal of the lives of the uber-rich: the scale. Everything is bigger, including –perhaps especially – their bad behaviour.
Former corporate finance lawyer Rachel Paris understands this and so when she decided to pursue her dream of writing a novel, she found herself pulled to the world of the wealthy. The result is a taut, engaging whodunnit that tests the ties that bind members of a wealthy Sydney family.
See How They Fall opens, appropriately enough, in the shadow of a death. Sir Campbell Turner, a Murdoch-type who built his fortune in luxury goods, has just died. His children are gathering at the family compound, Yallambee, on their private bay for the Easter long weekend. There are no servants. No staff. No witnesses.
From page one, the storytelling is assured and the pace is brisk. We follow one of our protagonists, artist Skye Turner as she and her husband and daughter arrive for the family debrief. There’s tension between the three Turner brothers that is not helped by the fact that this is the weekend Duncan has chosen to introduce his family to his recently-surfaced son.
At Yallambee, we meet the cast – the suspects – in what quickly becomes a locked-door mystery. There’s one death and one family member on life-support in hospital. Revealing the identities of the victims would spoil the first of several twists secreted into the book from the very earliest pages. Suffice to say: someone seems to want members of the Turner family dead. The terms are set. Let the chase begin.
Protagonist number two is Detective Mei O’Connor, who has demons of her own. Her fiancé has cheated on her. She has moved back home with her mother who is dying of cancer. She’s steely, determined, confident and she has infallible instincts.
The two flawed women come together to get to the bottom of the mystery. The dual perspectives allow us to see the mystery unravelling from the inside and the outside. The women are compelling, and determined to untangle the Turner family’s litany of lies. The truth, when it comes out, is far darker than they expected.
Rachel’s legal background elevates this to a cut above your average crime read. There’s a meticulousness to the procedural side that sharpens the narrative and brings the various obstacles and roadblocks to life as the story reaches its climax. The resolution is a genuine surprise, and pulls no punches. Themes of misogyny and privilege and threaded throughout the narrative. The result is an enjoyable, confident crime novel that really delivers.
Read the author interview here.
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