He is one of the warmest, most likeable characters Clifford draws, and it would have enhanced the story if the reader got to know him a little better. On several occasions throughout the story the reader is reminded that Toby is an Asian gay man, yet little more is revealed about him. One of the regular characters in Pen’s university circle of friends is a gay Asian man called Toby. Pen’s mother is depicted as a down-and-out small-town single mother who manages to attract losers into her heart. The story is told in the first person, which, in some ways limits the reader’s insight into many of the characters. In her debut crime novel Aoife Clifford uses Pen’s journal entries and visits to the psychiatrist as narrative tools. Write them down, he suggests.Īll These Perfect Strangers alternates between Pen’s life at university and the past. There are secrets locked inside her, dark secrets that she is reluctant to tell. The story is narrated by Pen and opens with her back home from university, in a session with her psychiatrist. But within six months there are two more suspicious deaths. She leaves the country life behind when she goes to university to study law. Her best friend from school is in prison after being convicted of murdering a local police officer and the reader learns early that Pen was caught up in that investigation. Yet Pen has been strangely close to three unusual deaths. It is, on the surface, an ordinary picture of a life that has barely begun. You are about to enter the world of Pen Sheppard. Imagine yourself as a 16-year-old girl who grew up in a small country town, then left at the first opportunity to explore the strange new world of university in the big city. Murder, like beauty, is in the eye of the beholder. I say deaths but perhaps all of them were murders. Actually more, if you go back far enough. This taut, beautifully written Australian crime fiction debut takes a fresh approach. Tags: Aoife Clifford/ Australian crime writing/ Australian women's writing Crime Scene: AOIFE CLIFFORD All These Perfect Strangers.
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