Books and reading

Celebrities, family, paparazzi – and murder: ‘An A-List for Death’ by Pamela Hart

When reading crime fiction series where the protagonist is not a detective or police officer, you must suspend disbelief: after all, how many murders can one ordinary person reasonably expect to encounter in a lifetime? Fortunately, when a series features characters like Poppy McGowan, it’s such a pleasure to spend time in their company that the ‘who-done-it’ mystery is really an added bonus.

An A-List for Death is the second in the Poppy novels by best selling Aussie author Pamela Hart (who also writes for children as Pamela Freeman). The first, Digging Up Dirt, saw Poppy dealing with a murder that took place in her being-renovated home in Sydney’s Annandale.

In this new book, Poppy and Tol’s relationship has moved along, though they face a long period of separation as Tol prepares to spend time in Jordan on an important archaeological dig. The murder this time occurs in the retirement unit complex of Poppy’s delightful Aunty Mary, and Mary’s old and dear friend Daisy.

Poppy is drawn into the drama and soon finds herself dealing with police, an unpleasant building manager, and paparazzi; the last because Daisy is attacked in her unit – and her son just happens to be a world famous rock star.

The title is a clever play on the idea of celebrity culture and the ‘A List’ of wealthy, famous and beautiful people. There are plenty of sly digs at the role of social and mainstream media in the publicity circus that occurs when a A-Lister hits the headlines. This time, Poppy herself becomes embroiled in the media feeding frenzy.

Murder is serious, of course; but there are plenty of chuckle moments, as in the first Poppy novel, juxtaposed against the police work and the serious stuff:

I read over my statement, nicely printed out, and corrected the punctuation before I signed it. Whoever had typed this up had a tortured relationship with commas. When I saw the way Martin was scowling at me, I guessed it was him, and I was very proud of myself for not winding him up about it.

An A-List for Death p188

My favourite bit in the novel is towards the end, when a city-wide search is instigated for a missing man, utilising the power of social media. It captures the quintessential Australian-ness – specifically, Sydney-ness – of the novel’s setting beautifully:

The longer it went on, the more it seemed like a party – people on the street on a nice night, everyone working together. A couple of guys set up a sausage sizzle near one of the camera crews. Fundraising for the local soccer club. Of course. Where five or more Australians gather, there shall be a Sausage Sizzle. It may even be a law.
Within minutes, #suasagesizzlesearch had started trending.

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If you love Sulari Gentill’s Rowland Sinclair series, or Kerry Greenwood’s Phryne Fisher, you’ll be pleased to discover the Poppy McGowan stories. I enjoyed An A-List for Death enormously and look forward to reading the next Poppy novel.

An A-List for Death is published by HarperCollins in June 2022.
My thanks to the publishers for a review copy.

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