This book is a nice, yet forgettable story about a brand new school teacher who has not grown into adulthood. I really felt for the protagonist, especially during her conversations with her married lover who tells her repeatedly that he does not care about her much. She is pathetically overshadowed by his wife, who is not only elegant, intelligent, and vivacious, but also happens to be writing a true crime novel about a woman who kills her husband's lover. She is most comfortable with the children in her class, and out of place among the other faculty. More than anything else, this story is about the humilation of a young woman who is way out of her league. Of course, there is a plot and everything, but not much happens. I couldn't reccommend this book, but I will definitely look into any forthcoming books by Chloe Hooper, because I think she has potential.

Never judge a book by the blurb on its back cover. Chloe Hooper's debut novel "A Child's Book Of True Crime (CBTC)" promised much - it was even shortlisted for the Orange Prize - but delivered little. That's because the author couldn't decide what the novel was supposed to be, a stylish murder mystery with an alternative ending and one that cleverly uses the past to mirror the present, or an ode to the nature of violence, a condition inherited from Australia's history as a penal colony. Written in an uncomfortably choppy prose, the novel makes a frustratingly uneven read.

As a murder mystery or psychological thriller, CBTC fails on two levels. First, you don't get any resolution to the "who murdered Ellie Siddell" poser from the past, though luckily you do get to find out whether Kate is letting her own mounting paranoia get to her head or if Veronica is really out to repeat the true crime she is writing about with her rival. But that's not all. Readers will feel doubly cheated when they discover at the end that the Kate/Thomas/Veronica triangle is really a sideshow and that the spotlight of the story is on Lucien. This makes Kate's defiant show of concern for Lucien's welfare as played out in the closing scenes particularly unconvincing and difficult to accept. Up until then, she was only afraid for her own life.

CBTC reads much better as an ode to violence as a condition inherited from the past that still haunts the present long after the original settlers have passed on. There is a lurking sense of violence bubbling beneath the surface that runs throughout the novel. Even if the farmer who helped Kate fix her broken car didn't turn out to be a pervert, there is the verbal violence heard spasmodically by Kate in the background to remind us. The psychological violence inflicted by the philandering Thomas and his chilly true crime novelist wife on their son Lucien by treating him not like a nine year old boy but as a "short adult" is truly horrific. Even the storybook animals in the imaginary story are gentler to their own kind and that's the rub.

Chloe Hooper was working with great material but she lost it when she couldn't quite decide on the genre she was writing in. CBTC fell between two stools and that's a shame. A courageous but failed experiment.

In Chloe Hooper's debut novel the isle of Tasmania features prominently. Tasmania, with its colourful convict past, has been a traditional locale of Australian Gothic. The tradition continued with Mathew Kneale's English Passengers and particularly with Richard Flanagan's fabulous Gould's Book of Fish.
Kate Byrne is a young teacher in a small Australian town outside of Hobart. She has been plunged into a new career and a new way of life very quickly and it appears she is not coping well. An affair with the self centred, boorish father of her brightest pupil does not help. That her lover's wife, who may know of the affair, has just written a true crime story of a recent local murder is disconcerting. When Kate reads Veronica's book she begins to fear for her future.
Without going into the book's ending Ms. Hooper has done very well in her examination of a young woman coming into the adult world. Kate realises childhood was not so complicated and that she must adapt.
The other story in the novel is the imaginary local animals investigation into the true crime. This is fascinating and one is loath to refer to criminals as "animals" after reading their account.
This a great first novel, well written and a very good and unsettling account of the loss of innocence. Highly recommended.