The Accusation
Page 27
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Suzannah Wells and Chip Gascoyne were married in February 2019, and their baby son was born in early March. Wells has declined to take legal action against either Canning or Fielding, despite pressure from the NSW Director of Public Prosecutions. She has consistently refused to speak to the press about her ordeal. Mary Squires, who continues to live with the couple, has featured in a Network Ten documentary on dementia, and has recently appeared in several advertisements for Ben & Jerry’s choc-mint ice cream.
Despite intense speculation, no credible motive for the false accusations has ever been established.
AUTHOR NOTE
The Accusation is a contemporary take on the eighteenth-century Canning Affair – an English criminal case and cause célèbre. The question of Elizabeth Canning’s guilt or innocence – which still remains a mystery – generated an early ‘media’ frenzy, divided the public, and captured the attention of some of the great legal and literary minds of the era. Josephine Tey transposed the drama to post-war England in her novel The Franchise Affair, and my own (somewhat fanciful) twenty-first century transportation owes much to her wonderfully wry, understated rendering of this ‘ridiculous and contemptible’ tale. If you’ve never read it, you should.
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
As ever, thanks are due to many.
To my agent Alexis Hurley for, well – so many things: faith, energy, excellent advice, encouragement and patience, for starters.
To my team at HarperCollins: my publisher Mary Rennie, who always knows what I can do better, and how to get me to do it; my editors Dianne Blacklock and Nicola Robinson, who miraculously pulled all the disparate, sometimes invisible, and occasionally non-existent, threads together; proofreader Pam Dunne, who saved me from some terrifying time-line faux pas; Darren Holt for designing a cover featuring a woman in a red dress – and making all my (secret) cover dreams come true; and Alice Wood, for all the hard work she puts in to get my books – and me – out there.
To my film agent Addison Duffy: for reading the terrible first draft – and then wanting to read it again.
To my writing family: Rebecca James, Susan Francis and Shari Kocher, who read and reread and reassured me that it could be done. And occasionally told me how. You were right!
To my early readers, friends and family, who offered much needed advice and encouragement: Mark Battisti, Marie Battisti, Marcia Huber, Jenny James and Prue Macfarlane.
To Jeffrey Braithwaite, Kristiana Ludlow, and the rest of the CHRIS team at AIHI, for giving me much needed time – and something else to think about.
To my family: Darren, Sam, Cat, Abi, Darcy, Nell and Will, who each deserve a Davy Crockett hat, at the very least.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
WENDY JAMES is the celebrated author of nine novels, including the bestselling The Mistake and The Golden Child, which was shortlisted for the 2017 Ned Kelly Award for crime fiction. Her debut novel, Out of the Silence, won the 2006 Ned Kelly Award for first crime novel, and was shortlisted for the Nita May Dobbie award for women’s writing. Wendy works as an editor at the Australian Institute of Health Innovation.
PRAISE FOR WENDY JAMES
‘Australia’s queen of the domestic thriller . . .’ Angela Savage, Books and Writing, ABC Radio
‘. . . a master of suburban suspense’ Cameron Woodhead, The Age
The Golden Child
‘James invites the reader to consider a set of close relationships in all their intricacy as those involved hurtle towards an inevitable disaster. This is domestic noir at its most intelligent and sharp’ Sue Turnbull, Sydney Morning Herald / Melbourne Age
‘It takes 48 hours to pulse through Wendy James’ rollercoaster 21st century story about parenting, which begins with navigating the trick-or-treating dilemma – to accompany or not? – but climaxes with the question, what age is my child legally responsible for criminal actions? . . . A chilling novel of our time, with a truly shocking twist’ Australian Women’s Weekly
‘This book is utterly brilliant. I just don’t know where to even start with a review – it was compelling, it was tragic, it was clever, it was frightening, it was heartbreaking, it was shocking and it gave me shivers and it made me question myself as a parent’ Nicola Moriarty, author, Goodreads
‘. . . an engaging and intimate read that will appeal to fans of Liane Moriarty and Jodi Picoult, with nods to Lionel Shriver and Christos Tsiolkas’ The Slap . . . 4 Stars’ Australian Books + Publishing
‘The Golden Child is a gripping novel that transports the reader into the insidious world of cyber-bullying and poses confronting questions about parenting’ Weekly Times
‘Why we love it: it’s a hot topic right now – teenage girls, bullying, and the perils of social media – a topic nailed by Aussie author Wendy James in her latest novel. The Golden Child is a disturbing yet funny look at the age-old problem of teenage girls and the very modern problem of cyber-bullying.’ Better Reading Book of the Week
The Lost Girls
‘A wonderful, unputdownable story by a great Australian author’ Liane Moriarty, Australian Women’s Weekly
‘. . . the novel is nothing less than compelling . . . The Lost Girls grabs hold of you and doesn’t let go – the sort of book you find yourself still reading long after you intended to put it down. In short, everything you want a novel of this kind to be’ Weekend Australian
‘Wendy James has again demonstrated her flair for suspenseful diversion, buttressed by her not inconsiderable literary talent’ Australian Book Review
The Mistake
‘The Mistake is a moving book that relentlessly hits the mark’ Sue Turnbull, Sydney Morning Herald
‘James . . . won the Ned Kelly award for first crime fiction six years ago – and she tells not just a tense and involving story, but also raises important questions about the role of the media, as the missing baby story becomes a runaway train. The Mistake, credible and accomplished, also asks what happens when family members begin to doubt each other, to wonder how well they know each other’ The Australian
‘. . . compelling, well-paced and suspenseful to the end’ Courier Mail
‘James is masterful at seamlessly ratcheting up the tension . . . Unputdownable’ Good Reading magazine
‘With strong characterisation and a whack of psychological suspense, it is the kind of novel that will have you second-guessing your own reactions and skilfully exposes the troubling expectations we resort to in the absence of hard evidence’ The Age
‘James’s pacing of her plot is masterly. From less than half way through the novel the reader has to fight an overwhelming urge to flick to the end, to take a quick test of their intuition and to assuage the escalating suspense. Resist the temptation: the end has its poignant surprises and James knows exactly where and how to reveal them’ Adelaide Advertiser
‘The Mistake is a knockout read . . . with a plot that will haunt you long after the final pages’ Angela Savage, broadcaster
‘The Mistake is an expertly written, compulsively readable novel that repays the reading with rich reflection. There are no easy answers here and the multiple “truths” of the novel are continually called into question. Everyone is culpable. There are plenty of parallels between Jodie Garrow’s life and those of other real-life women who have been caught up in a media frenzy and judged based on appearance. Nevertheless, the psychological implications go beyond a political statement. This is a powerful book with broad appeal’ Maggie Ball, Seattle PI
‘Within its suspenseful narrative, The Mistake has important things to say about how we think about motherhood, how the media views women, and how, when it comes to “the natural relationship between mother and daughter”, few can be neutral’ Linda Funnell, Newtown Review of Books
‘As in the public narratives we devour with tea and toast in the morning, there is nothing to convict Jodie upon except our own judgment of her character; we relish or condemn her according to our sense of moral distance from her. We take p
art as armchair jurors, comfortable in our own safety, never suspecting that buried secrets of our own may one day be uncovered’ Canberra Times
‘. . . an amazing book that had me hooked from start to finish . . .’ Great Aussie Reads
‘Brilliant, haunting and disturbing, with a twist that will leave you gasping, this is both a subtle and closely-observed [sic] portrayal of a family under stress, and a gripping thriller that leaves you guessing to the very end’ Sophie Masson, author
‘It’s sneakily challenging, disconcerting, compelling, car crash fascinating, and probably one of the best fictional reminders I’ve had in a while that public and media opinion should never be mistaken for the justice system, regardless of the ultimate outcome’ AustCrimefiction.org
‘It’s hands down one of the best endings I’ve read in a book, possibly ever’ 1girl2manybooks
Where Have You Been?
‘Where Have You Been? is a novel you’ll not want to put down’ Australian Bookseller & Publisher
‘The narrative’s power and cumulative suspense call to mind Alfred Hitchcock’s Vertigo’ Sara Dowse, Sydney Morning Herald
‘Wendy James’s third novel is structured like a symphony . . . Skilful structuring, fine, flexible writing and suspense that comes to a satisfying, if not limitingly cut-and-dried conclusion, make this social-realist novel as hard to put down as any thriller’ Katharine England, Adelaide Advertiser
Why She Loves Him
‘Emotionally astute, vivid and eloquent, underpinned by eroticism, James’s fiction traces the contours of her characters’ lives as they grapple with responsibility, freedom, and love, propelled by multifarious desires. These fresh, sensuous stories are by turns witty, perceptive and coruscating, many with a delicious wry twist’ Felicity Plunkett, critic
‘. . . absolutely amazing . . . There is something for everyone in this fantastic book’ Australian Bookseller and Publisher
‘From single page tales to the long sequence that ends the book, James’s sure hand leads us through sometimes harrowing, sometimes redemptive moments in her beautifully rounded characters’ lives’ Who magazine
‘. . . a penetrating picture of our life and times . . . a knockout’ Sara Dowse, Canberra Times
‘What quiet confidence, what an honest setting down of things as they are, nothing extenuating . . . This is a gifted story-teller and these are unusually arresting stories’ Robert Lumsden, Adelaide Review
Out of the Silence
‘. . . a work of intelligence and talent informed by a deeply humane sensitivity . . . If Wendy James aspires to be our national novelist, she is on her way. In equal measures intellectual and sensual, Out of the Silence is a brilliantly cut literary gem sparkling from every angle’ Sydney Morning Herald
2017 Ned Kelly Award Best Crime Fiction shortlist
Blogger Lizzy’s life is shiny, happy, normal. Two gorgeous children, a handsome husband, destiny under control. For her real-life alter-ego Beth, things are unravelling. Tensions simmer with her husband, mother-in-law, her own mother. Her daughters, once the objects of her existence, have moved into teenage-hood, their lives – at school, home and online – increasingly mysterious to her.
Then a fellow student is callously bullied and the finger of blame pointed at one of Beth’s girls. As an innocent child lies suspended between life and death, two families are forced to question everything they believe about their children . . .
As unsettling as it is compelling, The Golden Child asks: how well can you know anyone in the digital age?
‘A chilling novel of our time, with a truly shocking twist’
– Australian Women’s Weekly
COPYRIGHT
HarperCollinsPublishers
First published in Australia in 2019
by HarperCollinsPublishers Australia Pty Limited
ABN 36 009 913 517
harpercollins.com.au
Copyright © Wendy James 2019
The right of Wendy James to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted by her in accordance with the Copyright Amendment (Moral Rights) Act 2000.
This work is copyright. Apart from any use as permitted under the Copyright Act 1968, no part may be reproduced, copied, scanned, stored in a retrieval system, recorded, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, without the prior written permission of the publisher.
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A catalogue record for this book is available from the National Library of Australia
ISBN 978 1 4607 5238 8 (paperback)
ISBN 978 1 4607 0723 4 (ebook)
Cover design by Darren Holt, HarperCollins Design Studio
Cover image by Kirill Vludimirovich / Trevillion Images
* not her real name