Sydney on display: ‘Dead Man’s Pose’ by Susan Rogers & John Roosen

The first in what will be called the ‘Yoga Mat Mysteries’ series, Dead Man’s Pose is a fun romp through Sydney, Australia, in all its harbour glory, with its beautiful beaches rubbing shoulders with a glitzy casino. At a peaceful outdoor yoga class, a man dies while in the titular ‘Dead Man’s Pose’, otherwise known as shavasana.

The dead man is Mario. Elaina, the yoga teacher, is upset at what seems at first to be a misadventure during one of her classes. But when her apartment and yoga studio are both ransacked by unnamed people obviously looking for something – and not finding it – Elaina teams up with another of her students, Ric, to try to work out what really happened to Mario.

What follows takes the reader across many Sydney places and practices: great espresso coffees and food, the Opera House and Harbour Bridge, Chinatown, the northern beaches, even a foray up to the Central Coast. On the way Elaina and Ric encounter homeless folk, expert crime fighters, corrupt businesspeople, and a youthful computer hacker, among many other vividly drawn characters.

Their search takes them to the edge of danger and back again, before the mystery of Mario and why he was killed is solved.

There are many snippets about Sydney’s past and present woven throughout the story which adds colour and flavour. It was great to have this iconic city feature almost as a character in its own right in a novel; something which writers from the US and UK, for example, have done for many years. It’s a welcome trend in Australian literature.

The descriptions of the (many!) meals, snacks and beverages the two consume made me hungry and craving a good coffee. Occasionally this got in the way of the story, as did Ric’s near-perfection – I had to suspend disbelief a few times. The pacing and narrative technique could also be improved.

Overall, though, if you enjoy crime fiction that is not too graphic or gratuitous and is full of interesting characters and settings, you will enjoy Dead Man’s Pose. I think the premise of a crime series named after yoga poses is terrific and I wish the authors well in their future books.

Dead Man’s Pose is published as an eBook by G-EMS Pty Ltd, an imprint of Yoga Mat Mysteries, in 2022.

My thanks to the publishers for a review copy.