Wednesday, January 6, 2010

A little review for you....'Who Killed Dave' by Linda Cockburn


I credit my first spark of real interest in living a bit more sustainably to a book called 'Living The Good Life - Tried and Tested Strategies for Sustainable Living' (Hardie Grant, 2006), which documents efforts made by Linda Cockburn and her family to live self sufficiently. This inspirational and at times very funny story was written with great skill, humility and warmth. So its been with great interest that I've followed Linda Cockburn's ongoing work as regular contributor to the ABC Organic Gardener Magazine, and her blog, which documents the ongoing 'good life' from a block in Tasmania where the family are building a strawbale house.

Needless to say, I was very excited to learn that Linda Cockburn had published a novel, 'Who Killed Dave?' (tOgether Press, 2009). The tOgether Press is committed to producing books with a minimal carbon footprint, by planting trees to offset emissions created by production as well as using 100% recycled paper and vegetable inks. Linda kindly offered free copies of this book to followers of her blog who were willing to review it.

So for all of the above reasons, I really wanted to love 'Who Killed Dave?'......and I did! Despite its virtuous origins, it is not, as one might expect, used as a vehicle for disseminating environmental propaganda, its just a really funny, well-written read. The main character, Robyn, is a feisty, Stephanie Plum-esque tarot card reader who gets entangled in a mess of mystery and intrigue involving the colourful characters in her street after one of them is killed in bizarre circumstances. Yes, the figures who populate this novel have clearly been crafted with a nod to inclusivity - the blind phone sex worker for one, or her African refugee friends - but not self consciously so. And with a dark and brooding cop in the picture, this book is sexy too (maybe not one for Grandma). I for one was very entertained by 'Who Killed Dave?' and I would certainly recommend it to you all. Anyone interested in chasing up their own copy should head to the tOgether Press site (see link below).

'Who Killed Dave?' cover art appears courtesy of the 'Living The Good Life' blog.

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