Digging Up Dirt - SCWC Book reviewer in residence
From Australia’s dominant fetishization of property comes a crime romance with a killer tagline that will have any crime writer kicking themselves that they didn’t come up with it first.
Author Pamela Hart has written over 35 books from historical romance, kids fiction, romances and fantasy. With Digging up Dirt, Hart introduces us to her newest series featuring Poppy McGowan, a tv researcher working on a factual kids show for the ABC. When not producing segments on animals in the zoo, Poppy is renovating a small property in Sydney’s inner west. That is until bones are discovered in the foundations. Being an old property, the bones look colonial and probably animal but the museum archaeologists will need to confirm that. Unfortunately, the very next day lead archaeologist Dr Julieanne Weaver ends up dead between the floor joists. It doesn’t help that she is Poppy McGowan’s old enemy. Throw in a healthy amount of political intrigue, a handsome young archaeologist, and a smattering of potential suspects, and you have an amusing and light hearted mystery.
My background is strangely very similar to the main character so Poppy’s world was incredibly believable, as were her descriptions of the heritage and museum sector. Museum curator Gerry Collonucci whose speciality is pre WW2 Australian bricks still has me chuckling. Likewise, Poppy’s mother and father provide numerous gags around their love of a good cuppa. I am a huge fan of crime fiction with a dose of laughs and I read this book after a run of particularly gruesome and bloodthirsty thrillers, so Digging Up Dirt ticked all of the boxes for me. Ultimately though, I was left feeling like the crime was too light for crime fans and the romance too linear for the romantics. Dramatically the stakes for Poppy McGowan felt slight with the biggest questions over will she hook up with the young archaeologist and drop her drip of a fiancée with an obsession about watching the 7pm news. For a crime though, Poppy felt like she could walk away at any point.
It was funny and Poppy is very engaging, likeable and fun. Reading a story unashamedly set in Sydney’s Inner West and not a fictitious outback also allowed for some knowing jokes about the locations and lifestyles along Parramatta Road. These locations are treated as they should be in crime, a character of their own maybe even recognised.
When so much crime fiction is increasingly hyperviolent, set in locations auditioning for Wolf Creek, and a main character wracked by a turbulent past, it is refreshing to meet a character who bubbles along in a world very much familiar to the real. Like one of Poppy McGowan’s cup of teas, Digging Up Dirt is a welcome point of difference in the Australian crime fiction landscape.
Digging Up Dirt
By Pamela Hart
ISBN: 9781867201878
HQ Fiction
Released 2/6/2021
Author Twitter @pamelahartbooks
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SCWC Book Reviewer 2021: Andy Muir
Andy is an award nominated screenwriter and story researcher for the hugely successful Underbelly franchise, and was nominated for a Ned Kelly for his debut crime fiction Something for Nothing (Affirm Press, 2017). The follow up Hiding to Nothing (Affirm Press, 2019) continues anti hero Lachie Munro’s misadventures. Awarded a 2019 Australian Society of Authors Fellowship, he is currently writing two new crime novels.