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Second Sight
It only takes one spark
It’s the biggest case of her career and Eliza Carmody is on the ‘wrong’ side. She is defending a large corporation that people believe was responsible for the devastating bushfire that nearly destroyed her hometown. When she returns to Kinsale, a place she thought she’d left forever, Eliza witnesses a crime that sends her on a dangerous quest to uncover the mysteries of her childhood that the rest of the town seems happy to ignore.
When police discover human bones at ‘The Castle’, a historic homestead, Eliza becomes convinced that the answer lies in the events on a New Year’s Eve years ago, the night her friend Grace disappeared forever.
With the town still reeling from the fire’s aftermath, powerful local families are determined to protect young men from the consequences of their actions. Eliza begins to suspect that no one – even the most trustworthy – is telling the truth.
It’s the biggest case of her career and Eliza Carmody is on the ‘wrong’ side. She is defending a large corporation that people believe was responsible for the devastating bushfire that nearly destroyed her hometown. When she returns to Kinsale, a place she thought she’d left forever, Eliza witnesses a crime that sends her on a dangerous quest to uncover the mysteries of her childhood that the rest of the town seems happy to ignore.
When police discover human bones at ‘The Castle’, a historic homestead, Eliza becomes convinced that the answer lies in the events on a New Year’s Eve years ago, the night her friend Grace disappeared forever.
With the town still reeling from the fire’s aftermath, powerful local families are determined to protect young men from the consequences of their actions. Eliza begins to suspect that no one – even the most trustworthy – is telling the truth.
279 pages, Kindle Edition
First published June 18, 2018
75 people are currently reading
943 people want to read
About the author
Aoife Clifford
9 books107 followersAoife Clifford is the author of the novel All These Perfect Strangers, published in Australia and the United Kingdom by Simon & Schuster and by Penguin Random House in the United States.
Born in London of Irish parents, she grew up in New South Wales, studied Arts/Law at the Australian National University, Canberra and now lives in Melbourne.
Aoife has won two premier short story prizes for crime fiction in Australia - the Scarlet Stiletto (2007) and the S.D. Harvey Ned Kelly Award in 2012, among other prizes. She has also been short listed for the UK Crime Association's Debut Dagger. In 2014 she was awarded an Australian Society of Authors mentorship for her novel, All These Perfect Strangers.
(source: Amazon)
Born in London of Irish parents, she grew up in New South Wales, studied Arts/Law at the Australian National University, Canberra and now lives in Melbourne.
Aoife has won two premier short story prizes for crime fiction in Australia - the Scarlet Stiletto (2007) and the S.D. Harvey Ned Kelly Award in 2012, among other prizes. She has also been short listed for the UK Crime Association's Debut Dagger. In 2014 she was awarded an Australian Society of Authors mentorship for her novel, All These Perfect Strangers.
(source: Amazon)
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 138 reviews
July 2, 2018
4.5★
“We have circled back again to that night so right now we are both adults and sixteen at the same time.”
A second look with hindsight. Clifford has written two timelines, but the story is easy to follow (whew). Twenty years ago, Eliza Carmody and her friends were teenagers, skinny-dipping at a beach party when one runs away, supposedly to the city.
And then there’s today, where the memories of youth are still there when talking to old friends. The flashback chapters are clearly identified and well-placed. I like the format, because when you’re a kid, you assume you know what people’s motives are. Twenty years and a love affair or two later, Eliza’s reconsidering how she interpreted what she saw.
She grew up in the small Aussie country town of Kinsale, Victoria, where her mother died when she was four. Her policeman father sent her off to boarding school in Melbourne at sixteen. Banished, she felt. He turned her bedroom into his study but let her older sister live at home until she married Gavin, now the local Senior Sergeant.
Another family friend “was a drive-by cop, all lights, sirens, guns and bad guys. Paperwork and community relations didn’t figure at all.”
Twenty years later, Eliza’s returning as a lawyer representing the power company being sued by the town in a class action for poor maintenance of a power line that snapped, igniting dry grass and causing a devastating bush fire.
[Side note: there are currently similar class actions now in Australia against power companies accused of failing to take appropriate precautions to prevent fires.]
Eliza says everyone deserves legal representation, and this case just happened to land on her desk. Actually, if she wants to remain a partner in her firm, she needs to grab whatever work she can get. But she has no idea what she’s in for!
Mick Carmody was a popular policeman in Kinsale, but he’s now in a nursing home, fading fast and seemingly unable to speak. She doesn’t really want to visit, but she does.
“Perhaps blood ties are like invisible ink. When the situation heats up, suddenly they appear.”
Kinsale is a small town and everybody still recognises Eliza because of her distinctive eyes which appear to be different colours, She used to pretend they gave her special powers, and someone suggests “like second sight?” She wishes!
Eliza’s headed to a meeting with a consultant at The Castle, the historic mansion where the fire started, when she gets caught in tourist traffic.
“The population of Kinsale expands and folds depending on the weather and locals know never to drive near the centre of town on summer weekends.”
While stuck, she sees a parking bingle and an argument involving one of her old classmates, Luke. A man with silly green hat and a broad Irish accent is walking down the street, and he steps in, calming the situation down.
A little later, she witness Luke and the Hat Man fighting, and a punch by Luke lands the Hat Man on the ground, motionless.
So we have several stories. There’s her history, twenty years ago, which includes Luke and Grace, her friend who fled suddenly from the beach party, never to be heard from since.
Of course we have the fire and the lawsuit which is being led by the owner of The Castle, Janey Bayless, who is also the local publican and running for mayor. She knew all the kids and is still a force to be reckoned with.
“Her curves are now more globe than hourglass but otherwise she’s the same.”
And we now add the Hat Man, Paul, and his Irish charmer brother, Donal, because Eliza hops into a – ahem – relationship with him. There is speculation about the Hat Man and Luke and drugs. A lot to think about, what with Paul in bad shape in the hospital.
Meanwhile, the town has taken Paul to heart in the way modern folk do.
“People who don’t know him are #prayingforPaul because apparently God regularly checks his Twitter feed.”
Oh, almost forgot. There’s the whole nursing home thread, with Mick reacting to a bit and where dear old Mary sits outside every day, saying she’s waiting to be collected by a grandson, but really just can’t bear to sit inside. Love her commentary on visitors and staff!
“‘He’s got a face as red as a slapped bum,’ says Mary. ‘Someone’s for it.’”
I thoroughly enjoyed this one, just as I enjoyed her debut All These Perfect Strangers which I also reviewed. https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...
Thanks to NetGalley and Simon and Schuster for the preview copy from which I’ve quoted.
“We have circled back again to that night so right now we are both adults and sixteen at the same time.”
A second look with hindsight. Clifford has written two timelines, but the story is easy to follow (whew). Twenty years ago, Eliza Carmody and her friends were teenagers, skinny-dipping at a beach party when one runs away, supposedly to the city.
And then there’s today, where the memories of youth are still there when talking to old friends. The flashback chapters are clearly identified and well-placed. I like the format, because when you’re a kid, you assume you know what people’s motives are. Twenty years and a love affair or two later, Eliza’s reconsidering how she interpreted what she saw.
She grew up in the small Aussie country town of Kinsale, Victoria, where her mother died when she was four. Her policeman father sent her off to boarding school in Melbourne at sixteen. Banished, she felt. He turned her bedroom into his study but let her older sister live at home until she married Gavin, now the local Senior Sergeant.
Another family friend “was a drive-by cop, all lights, sirens, guns and bad guys. Paperwork and community relations didn’t figure at all.”
Twenty years later, Eliza’s returning as a lawyer representing the power company being sued by the town in a class action for poor maintenance of a power line that snapped, igniting dry grass and causing a devastating bush fire.
[Side note: there are currently similar class actions now in Australia against power companies accused of failing to take appropriate precautions to prevent fires.]
Eliza says everyone deserves legal representation, and this case just happened to land on her desk. Actually, if she wants to remain a partner in her firm, she needs to grab whatever work she can get. But she has no idea what she’s in for!
Mick Carmody was a popular policeman in Kinsale, but he’s now in a nursing home, fading fast and seemingly unable to speak. She doesn’t really want to visit, but she does.
“Perhaps blood ties are like invisible ink. When the situation heats up, suddenly they appear.”
Kinsale is a small town and everybody still recognises Eliza because of her distinctive eyes which appear to be different colours, She used to pretend they gave her special powers, and someone suggests “like second sight?” She wishes!
Eliza’s headed to a meeting with a consultant at The Castle, the historic mansion where the fire started, when she gets caught in tourist traffic.
“The population of Kinsale expands and folds depending on the weather and locals know never to drive near the centre of town on summer weekends.”
While stuck, she sees a parking bingle and an argument involving one of her old classmates, Luke. A man with silly green hat and a broad Irish accent is walking down the street, and he steps in, calming the situation down.
A little later, she witness Luke and the Hat Man fighting, and a punch by Luke lands the Hat Man on the ground, motionless.
So we have several stories. There’s her history, twenty years ago, which includes Luke and Grace, her friend who fled suddenly from the beach party, never to be heard from since.
Of course we have the fire and the lawsuit which is being led by the owner of The Castle, Janey Bayless, who is also the local publican and running for mayor. She knew all the kids and is still a force to be reckoned with.
“Her curves are now more globe than hourglass but otherwise she’s the same.”
And we now add the Hat Man, Paul, and his Irish charmer brother, Donal, because Eliza hops into a – ahem – relationship with him. There is speculation about the Hat Man and Luke and drugs. A lot to think about, what with Paul in bad shape in the hospital.
Meanwhile, the town has taken Paul to heart in the way modern folk do.
“People who don’t know him are #prayingforPaul because apparently God regularly checks his Twitter feed.”
Oh, almost forgot. There’s the whole nursing home thread, with Mick reacting to a bit and where dear old Mary sits outside every day, saying she’s waiting to be collected by a grandson, but really just can’t bear to sit inside. Love her commentary on visitors and staff!
“‘He’s got a face as red as a slapped bum,’ says Mary. ‘Someone’s for it.’”
I thoroughly enjoyed this one, just as I enjoyed her debut All These Perfect Strangers which I also reviewed. https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...
Thanks to NetGalley and Simon and Schuster for the preview copy from which I’ve quoted.
July 7, 2018
Firstly I want to give Aoife Clifford full marks for her beautiful writing. Her description of a small Aussie seaside town is spot on and the whole book projects the atmosphere of living there. Someone also did great work on that gorgeous cover which is totally in keeping with the contents of the book.
The story is about Eliza who is a lawyer and a partner in a city firm and is one of those interfering busy bodies who will not leave things alone. Returning to the small town of her youth is probably a mistake and she suffers badly as she tries to discover the truth of what happened one night years ago. Regular use is made of flashbacks and although I am not always a fan of this technique this author carries it off well. Be warned though there are lots of characters involved and the reader needs to stay alert to all the different names!
Second Sight is the first book I have read by this Australian author. It was an easy and a speedy read with an interesting story that moves at a good pace. I will be looking out for more of her work.
The story is about Eliza who is a lawyer and a partner in a city firm and is one of those interfering busy bodies who will not leave things alone. Returning to the small town of her youth is probably a mistake and she suffers badly as she tries to discover the truth of what happened one night years ago. Regular use is made of flashbacks and although I am not always a fan of this technique this author carries it off well. Be warned though there are lots of characters involved and the reader needs to stay alert to all the different names!
Second Sight is the first book I have read by this Australian author. It was an easy and a speedy read with an interesting story that moves at a good pace. I will be looking out for more of her work.
November 13, 2018
Eliza Carmody has returned to her home town of Kinsale on the Victorian coast for the first time since she was sent away to boarding school not long after the disappearance of her friend Grace. Now she is a sucessful lawyer, back to interview an expert witness about a bushfire that nearly wiped out Kinsale and killed people she knew. Grace was never found and returning to Kinsale has re-ignited painful memories for Eliza of the night she vanished and made her determined to solve the mystery of her disappearance.
Aoife Clifford has constructed a well written and carefully plotted mystery. She has captured the feeling of a small Australian town and the close relationships of its people that make it hard to keep secrets. Through Grace's memories of the past and the current day, there are plenty of interesting and complex characters, from Janey's friends Amy, Luke and Tony and her estranged sister Tess and husband policeman Gavin to her father Mick, now in a nursing home and Janey Bayless, the local publican running for mayor. Eliza's second look at the events of Grace's disappearance will give her a different perspective of what actually happened all that time ago. 4.5★
Aoife Clifford has constructed a well written and carefully plotted mystery. She has captured the feeling of a small Australian town and the close relationships of its people that make it hard to keep secrets. Through Grace's memories of the past and the current day, there are plenty of interesting and complex characters, from Janey's friends Amy, Luke and Tony and her estranged sister Tess and husband policeman Gavin to her father Mick, now in a nursing home and Janey Bayless, the local publican running for mayor. Eliza's second look at the events of Grace's disappearance will give her a different perspective of what actually happened all that time ago. 4.5★
July 2, 2018
4.5★s
Eliza Carmody was driving slowly through the middle of town, the traffic built up and congested when a minor car accident in front of her sparked a chain of events that changed the course of her life. Eliza was back in her home town of Kinsale in Victoria for a business meeting about a class action regarding the tragic bushfire in the town two years previously. She was a top-class lawyer and this case was pivotal to her career. But the tragic consequences of that unexpected accident brought images of Eliza’s past back to her…
When bones were discovered out at the historic site of The Castle, a place the teenagers of the era used to frequent – including Eliza – she was convinced it was the skeleton of one of her girlfriends who went missing when they were all sixteen and foolish. With Eliza’s father, who used to be the town’s local cop, unable to comprehend anything, Eliza felt it was up to her to solve the case her father hadn’t. But was it putting her in danger? The strange things that were happening to her – were they to do with the litigation case or her past?
Second Sight is the second novel by Aussie author Aoife Clifford - after her debut All These Perfect Strangers - which I thoroughly enjoyed. Tense and gritty, with bitterness washing through the town; families torn apart; blame aimed where it shouldn’t be – and sometimes where it should – Second Sight is a compelling and unputdownable psychological thriller which I highly recommend. The cover art is amazing!
With thanks to Simon & Schuster AU for my uncorrected proof ARC to read and review.
Eliza Carmody was driving slowly through the middle of town, the traffic built up and congested when a minor car accident in front of her sparked a chain of events that changed the course of her life. Eliza was back in her home town of Kinsale in Victoria for a business meeting about a class action regarding the tragic bushfire in the town two years previously. She was a top-class lawyer and this case was pivotal to her career. But the tragic consequences of that unexpected accident brought images of Eliza’s past back to her…
When bones were discovered out at the historic site of The Castle, a place the teenagers of the era used to frequent – including Eliza – she was convinced it was the skeleton of one of her girlfriends who went missing when they were all sixteen and foolish. With Eliza’s father, who used to be the town’s local cop, unable to comprehend anything, Eliza felt it was up to her to solve the case her father hadn’t. But was it putting her in danger? The strange things that were happening to her – were they to do with the litigation case or her past?
Second Sight is the second novel by Aussie author Aoife Clifford - after her debut All These Perfect Strangers - which I thoroughly enjoyed. Tense and gritty, with bitterness washing through the town; families torn apart; blame aimed where it shouldn’t be – and sometimes where it should – Second Sight is a compelling and unputdownable psychological thriller which I highly recommend. The cover art is amazing!
With thanks to Simon & Schuster AU for my uncorrected proof ARC to read and review.
January 31, 2024
A small town with a troubling history that’s full of secrets and devastating consequences lies at the forefront of this brilliantly conceived and executed mystery. Aoife Clifford’s second novel is as compelling as it is heartbreaking, with events spanning more than 20 years creating a pervading feeling of guilt and profound remorse.
Returning to her home town of Kinsale in Victoria, Eliza witnesses a minor bingle that quickly escalates into a fight with one man winding up knocked out on the ground, fighting for life. The victim is unknown to her, just a man wearing a distinctive green felt hat, but she happens to know the man who threw the devastating punch. In fact, she knows that man very well having shared a moment with him many years before.
As tragic as the one-punch incident is, it sparks off memories from more than 20 years ago when she was a brash 16 year old, sneaking off to a New Year’s Eve party that ended badly. By the end of the night she will have embarrassed herself in front of her friends and seen one of them for the last time. She’s still, to this day, unsure exactly what happened to Grace Hedland.
The focus of the story switches alternately between the present events and that day 20 years earlier. Eliza works to try to piece together what happened back then, part of which seems linked to a car accident that has left her father, the former police chief, in a vegetative state. Meanwhile, that New Year’s Eve plays out for us to get a picture of what happened as the clock clicked over to midnight and then beyond.
As Eliza moves around town, one thing becomes clear, all the main players from 20-odd years ago are still living in this small town. The other is that everyone seems to know everyone else and are connected to them in some way. The friends with whom Eliza had partied on that fateful night are there to quiz today and they each have vital pieces of information to tell that helps to slowly put together that night.
What this also means is that those responsible are still lurking around and they’re not going to appreciate someone returning to Kinsale and bringing up the past.
It’s important to take note of every little confrontation in the book because everything and everyone is connected. Even the punch in the opening scene turns out to be significant, resulting in ramifications that will be felt throughout the book.
As well as being a wonderfully complex mystery, Second Sight provides an outstanding depiction of the small town dynamic complete with long held grudges and carefully buried memories. We’re carefully led down a number of seemingly obvious paths only to find that they’re blind alleys and I found it necessary on more than one occasion to readjust my thinking as I tried to guess the guilty party. Just the way a good mystery should work.
Returning to her home town of Kinsale in Victoria, Eliza witnesses a minor bingle that quickly escalates into a fight with one man winding up knocked out on the ground, fighting for life. The victim is unknown to her, just a man wearing a distinctive green felt hat, but she happens to know the man who threw the devastating punch. In fact, she knows that man very well having shared a moment with him many years before.
As tragic as the one-punch incident is, it sparks off memories from more than 20 years ago when she was a brash 16 year old, sneaking off to a New Year’s Eve party that ended badly. By the end of the night she will have embarrassed herself in front of her friends and seen one of them for the last time. She’s still, to this day, unsure exactly what happened to Grace Hedland.
The focus of the story switches alternately between the present events and that day 20 years earlier. Eliza works to try to piece together what happened back then, part of which seems linked to a car accident that has left her father, the former police chief, in a vegetative state. Meanwhile, that New Year’s Eve plays out for us to get a picture of what happened as the clock clicked over to midnight and then beyond.
As Eliza moves around town, one thing becomes clear, all the main players from 20-odd years ago are still living in this small town. The other is that everyone seems to know everyone else and are connected to them in some way. The friends with whom Eliza had partied on that fateful night are there to quiz today and they each have vital pieces of information to tell that helps to slowly put together that night.
What this also means is that those responsible are still lurking around and they’re not going to appreciate someone returning to Kinsale and bringing up the past.
It’s important to take note of every little confrontation in the book because everything and everyone is connected. Even the punch in the opening scene turns out to be significant, resulting in ramifications that will be felt throughout the book.
As well as being a wonderfully complex mystery, Second Sight provides an outstanding depiction of the small town dynamic complete with long held grudges and carefully buried memories. We’re carefully led down a number of seemingly obvious paths only to find that they’re blind alleys and I found it necessary on more than one occasion to readjust my thinking as I tried to guess the guilty party. Just the way a good mystery should work.
July 10, 2018
Eliza Carmody is returning to her home town of Kinsale as a lawyer defending the company Calhorts. The very company deemed responsible for the bushfire that destroyed lives and nearly destroyed the town two years prior.
On the drive in, she sees a good Samaritan being king hit due to a traffic incident and she’s drawn into these circumstances as a witness. But not all is what it seems.... suddenly it’s not all about the bushfire claim, especially when bones are found around the ‘Castle’. It seems to move on in her life she has to work out what happened 20 years ago on New Year’s Eve, when her best friend Grace disappeared.
I loved this book, another favourite one that makes me feel many emotions. I could feel Eliza’s jealousy, confusion and regret, especially with her father and sister. I didn’t agree with all of Eliza’s actions but I did admire her.
There were a number of characters to get my head around and the story has flash backs to events that happened on that New Year’s Eve 20 years ago but it flowed effortlessly. Suspense, tension, small town secrets and illegal activities make a great book.
Thank you to Netgalley and the Publisher for an ARC to read.
On the drive in, she sees a good Samaritan being king hit due to a traffic incident and she’s drawn into these circumstances as a witness. But not all is what it seems.... suddenly it’s not all about the bushfire claim, especially when bones are found around the ‘Castle’. It seems to move on in her life she has to work out what happened 20 years ago on New Year’s Eve, when her best friend Grace disappeared.
I loved this book, another favourite one that makes me feel many emotions. I could feel Eliza’s jealousy, confusion and regret, especially with her father and sister. I didn’t agree with all of Eliza’s actions but I did admire her.
There were a number of characters to get my head around and the story has flash backs to events that happened on that New Year’s Eve 20 years ago but it flowed effortlessly. Suspense, tension, small town secrets and illegal activities make a great book.
Thank you to Netgalley and the Publisher for an ARC to read.
June 7, 2019
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**4.5 stars**
Second Sight by Aoife Clifford. (2018).
Eliza returns home to her small country town. However the problem is she is defending a large corporation against a bushfire class action by the town. On her first day back she witnesses an old friend commit an act of lethal violence. Then bones are uncovered on a historic homestead and Eliza is convinced they belong to someone from her past. As Eliza becomes more entangled in all the investigations she begins to question everyone she knows and everything she thought was true.
I really enjoyed this novel. The majority of the book is from Eliza's point of view in the current timeline, with small sections of the book occurring on New Year's Eve 1996 when Eliza's friend Grace went missing. This is a very clever narrative because it focuses on how someone's past assumptions can influence their life now regardless if those assumptions were actually true or not. The synopsis may sound like a lot is going on and in a way there is however it all ties together nicely in the end. The small town and the relationships between the people who reside there feels very genuine. This is definitely a well-written and gripping book.
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**4.5 stars**
Second Sight by Aoife Clifford. (2018).
Eliza returns home to her small country town. However the problem is she is defending a large corporation against a bushfire class action by the town. On her first day back she witnesses an old friend commit an act of lethal violence. Then bones are uncovered on a historic homestead and Eliza is convinced they belong to someone from her past. As Eliza becomes more entangled in all the investigations she begins to question everyone she knows and everything she thought was true.
I really enjoyed this novel. The majority of the book is from Eliza's point of view in the current timeline, with small sections of the book occurring on New Year's Eve 1996 when Eliza's friend Grace went missing. This is a very clever narrative because it focuses on how someone's past assumptions can influence their life now regardless if those assumptions were actually true or not. The synopsis may sound like a lot is going on and in a way there is however it all ties together nicely in the end. The small town and the relationships between the people who reside there feels very genuine. This is definitely a well-written and gripping book.
June 28, 2018
Another great Aussie writer to keep an eye out for... Second Sight is a fantastic story that keeps you guessing til the end...the very end. I love reading about this small country town and the characters that made life very interesting.
Eliza has moved away from Kinsdale and is now a hot shot lawyer in the city. She returns home to work on a big case, but this time she is working on the dark side - defending a big corporation in a class action over a bushfire. On her way to a meeting with her witnesses a traffic accident that turns lethal - and to make matters worse she went to school with the on the run suspect. Whilst she is still in town, some bones are found near an old hangout of Eliza's and she believes that she knows who the bones belong to.
As the cases are investigated her past starts to come back to haunt her, and we learn a lot about the townsfolk of Kinsdale. You will never guess the ending.
Thanks to Simon and Schuster and Netgalley for the advanced copy of this book to read and enjoy in exchange for my honest opnions
Eliza has moved away from Kinsdale and is now a hot shot lawyer in the city. She returns home to work on a big case, but this time she is working on the dark side - defending a big corporation in a class action over a bushfire. On her way to a meeting with her witnesses a traffic accident that turns lethal - and to make matters worse she went to school with the on the run suspect. Whilst she is still in town, some bones are found near an old hangout of Eliza's and she believes that she knows who the bones belong to.
As the cases are investigated her past starts to come back to haunt her, and we learn a lot about the townsfolk of Kinsdale. You will never guess the ending.
Thanks to Simon and Schuster and Netgalley for the advanced copy of this book to read and enjoy in exchange for my honest opnions
March 4, 2021
Country towns do funerals best of all, being practised in tragedy. The farm accidents. The car crashes. The suicides dressed up as farm accidents and car crashes. Businesses shut down, the local school choir turns up, people take the time to pay their respects…
Melbourne lawyer Eliza Carmody returns to the coastal town of Kinsale where she was raised, acting on behalf of a power company implicated in a devastating bushfire that partly destroyed the town two years earlier. The high profile case has attracted death threats, and not everyone in the city law firm thinks Eliza is up to it. Caught in holiday traffic, she is an eyewitness to a king-hit by a man she knew in her teens, on an Irishman working in a local hotel.
But that’s the backstory: told (ironically) in the first person, present tense. The main story (third person, past tense) is the events of a New Year’s Eve Party in 1996, where drunken teenagers went too far and Grace Hedland, a friend of Eliza, disappeared.
Like all small town dramas, everyone knows everyone and half are inter-related. Eliza’s father, Mick, was the town’s top policeman before a car accident left him severely disabled and in a nursing home, looked after by, among others, the mother of the man accused of the king-hit. Her sister Tess is married to a policeman, her best friend Amy, a doctor, is married to another friend, (and so on, and so on).
The car park is almost empty, which makes the surroundings look even more antiseptic. The building is made of anaemic cream bricks with two green squares of lawn either side of a large electric door. A couple of small trees have been pruned to within an inch of their lives. The gravel is swept, the footpath white and smooth. The building is all nursing and no home.
Attacked in her apartment, Eliza is sidelined in the bushfire case, and tries to unravel the past, but not everyone in Kinsale welcomes the intrusion into their lives. Unearthing dormant secrets sets her up for a deadly confrontation with the killer.
Verdict: a satisfying read, where the villain is only revealed towards the end.
Melbourne lawyer Eliza Carmody returns to the coastal town of Kinsale where she was raised, acting on behalf of a power company implicated in a devastating bushfire that partly destroyed the town two years earlier. The high profile case has attracted death threats, and not everyone in the city law firm thinks Eliza is up to it. Caught in holiday traffic, she is an eyewitness to a king-hit by a man she knew in her teens, on an Irishman working in a local hotel.
But that’s the backstory: told (ironically) in the first person, present tense. The main story (third person, past tense) is the events of a New Year’s Eve Party in 1996, where drunken teenagers went too far and Grace Hedland, a friend of Eliza, disappeared.
Like all small town dramas, everyone knows everyone and half are inter-related. Eliza’s father, Mick, was the town’s top policeman before a car accident left him severely disabled and in a nursing home, looked after by, among others, the mother of the man accused of the king-hit. Her sister Tess is married to a policeman, her best friend Amy, a doctor, is married to another friend, (and so on, and so on).
The car park is almost empty, which makes the surroundings look even more antiseptic. The building is made of anaemic cream bricks with two green squares of lawn either side of a large electric door. A couple of small trees have been pruned to within an inch of their lives. The gravel is swept, the footpath white and smooth. The building is all nursing and no home.
Attacked in her apartment, Eliza is sidelined in the bushfire case, and tries to unravel the past, but not everyone in Kinsale welcomes the intrusion into their lives. Unearthing dormant secrets sets her up for a deadly confrontation with the killer.
Verdict: a satisfying read, where the villain is only revealed towards the end.
June 24, 2019
To be reviewed over at Fresh Fiction!
July 23, 2018
Brilliant!
My View:
The book is an outstanding read! It goes straight onto my Best of 2018 reads list and I highly recommend it to anyone who likes great crime fiction/mystery.
I predict awards for this book in the near future and I can visualise this novel as a base for a script for a movie. The characters, the tension and the setting as so evocative the words leap off the page and onto that screen. A fabulous read, if you haven’t already read this then you are really missing out.
My View:
The book is an outstanding read! It goes straight onto my Best of 2018 reads list and I highly recommend it to anyone who likes great crime fiction/mystery.
I predict awards for this book in the near future and I can visualise this novel as a base for a script for a movie. The characters, the tension and the setting as so evocative the words leap off the page and onto that screen. A fabulous read, if you haven’t already read this then you are really missing out.
March 3, 2020
*https://mrsbbookreviews.wordpress.com
Book #5 in the #20BACKLISTIN2020 challenge
Second Sight by Aoife Clifford is a 2018 publication from Australian publishing house Simon and Schuster. This latest production from Clifford offers a convoluted story of twisted small town secrets, guilt, retribution and revelations. The quintessential Australian setting proves to be the ideal breeding ground for an enthralling crime based story.
Reeling from a fire that ripped apart the small rural town ship of Kinsale over two years ago, the local community has become more protective than ever in its efforts to recover from such a devastating blow. Former Kinsdale resident Eliza Carmody returns to her home town to provide legal support to the corporation charged with a class action suit by the Kinsdale community for the fire. Eliza finds her homecoming immediately unwelcoming. She witnesses an old school acquaintance commit a terrible act of violence, she is threatened and the recent unearthing of a set of bones at a local site sends Eliza is a spin. Second Sight sees Eliza confront her difficult past, while also dealing with the strained relations of her legal case. Memories of the past come flooding back and Eliza finds it increasingly hard to trust anyone, or anything in Kinsdale.
I have had Second Sight occupying a place on my bulging bookshelves since this book was first released in mid-2018. The book has recently seen a reprint, with an eye-catching and distinctly Australian feel cover. The flying black cockatoo on the updated cover version caught my eye in the shops, along with the front cover tagline ‘A TOWN BURNED TO CINDERS WITH FIRE… AND LIES’. With bushfires recently raging all over our country, I felt compelled to investigate this novel. Second Sight is centered on a small rural township devastated by a fire and a town determined to seek justice for the cause of the fire. Second Sight proved to be a powerful and timely read, given our current climate in Australia and the grief we have collectively felt as a nation for the deep loss of environment.
Aoife Clifford is an author who has successfully managed to launch herself into the Australian rural crime genre, a burgeoning category, with Second Sight. Although I try not to compare releases by the same author, I did find Second Sight contrasted to All These Perfect Strangers. Second Sight is a book that is deeply entrenched in the Australian way of life. It is dripping in atmosphere. The piercing sense of menace established and carried through this novel is undeniable. I appreciated Clifford’s approach to this book, the stylised format of alternating Eliza’s present day happenings, with events in the past was tumultuous. I was equally invested in both timelines presented by Clifford. I liked how the narratives gravitated around one another and then eventually crossed over. I also admired Clifford’s approach, which I found to be clever and intricately plotted.
Eliza’s goes through a significant amount of turmoil as the book progresses. There are the events of the past and the loss of her best friend in unsolved circumstances, which has clearly haunted her. Then there is the burden of her father’s care and the tension that arises from her legal work back home. I had a deep appreciation for Eliza’s inner strength, guts, determination and her ability to prevail in difficult circumstances. Ultimately, I wanted Eliza to succeed and come out the other side. I also wanted Eliza to put some of the demons of her past to rest. Clifford does a fine job of outlining Eliza’s journey, which is intertwined with a new case and a cold case. While the looming presence of the catastrophic bushfire two years ago looms over the unfolding story.
There were some surprising revelations, plot twists, digressions and detours thrown at me by Clifford, which I didn’t mind at all. Questions of trust, guilt, blame, recovery, acceptance and self-preservation play a heavy part of this electrifying crime novel. I certainly held my breath a few times!
Second Sight is a blazing and intense novel, underpinned by a visceral tone and a stifling small town atmosphere. In her follow up novel to All These Perfect Strangers, Aoife Clifford proves that she is a top notch Australian crime novelist, who is doing great things for this thriving genre.
Second Sight is book #20 of the 2020 Australian Women Writers Challenge
Book #5 in the #20BACKLISTIN2020 challenge
Second Sight by Aoife Clifford is a 2018 publication from Australian publishing house Simon and Schuster. This latest production from Clifford offers a convoluted story of twisted small town secrets, guilt, retribution and revelations. The quintessential Australian setting proves to be the ideal breeding ground for an enthralling crime based story.
Reeling from a fire that ripped apart the small rural town ship of Kinsale over two years ago, the local community has become more protective than ever in its efforts to recover from such a devastating blow. Former Kinsdale resident Eliza Carmody returns to her home town to provide legal support to the corporation charged with a class action suit by the Kinsdale community for the fire. Eliza finds her homecoming immediately unwelcoming. She witnesses an old school acquaintance commit a terrible act of violence, she is threatened and the recent unearthing of a set of bones at a local site sends Eliza is a spin. Second Sight sees Eliza confront her difficult past, while also dealing with the strained relations of her legal case. Memories of the past come flooding back and Eliza finds it increasingly hard to trust anyone, or anything in Kinsdale.
I have had Second Sight occupying a place on my bulging bookshelves since this book was first released in mid-2018. The book has recently seen a reprint, with an eye-catching and distinctly Australian feel cover. The flying black cockatoo on the updated cover version caught my eye in the shops, along with the front cover tagline ‘A TOWN BURNED TO CINDERS WITH FIRE… AND LIES’. With bushfires recently raging all over our country, I felt compelled to investigate this novel. Second Sight is centered on a small rural township devastated by a fire and a town determined to seek justice for the cause of the fire. Second Sight proved to be a powerful and timely read, given our current climate in Australia and the grief we have collectively felt as a nation for the deep loss of environment.
Aoife Clifford is an author who has successfully managed to launch herself into the Australian rural crime genre, a burgeoning category, with Second Sight. Although I try not to compare releases by the same author, I did find Second Sight contrasted to All These Perfect Strangers. Second Sight is a book that is deeply entrenched in the Australian way of life. It is dripping in atmosphere. The piercing sense of menace established and carried through this novel is undeniable. I appreciated Clifford’s approach to this book, the stylised format of alternating Eliza’s present day happenings, with events in the past was tumultuous. I was equally invested in both timelines presented by Clifford. I liked how the narratives gravitated around one another and then eventually crossed over. I also admired Clifford’s approach, which I found to be clever and intricately plotted.
Eliza’s goes through a significant amount of turmoil as the book progresses. There are the events of the past and the loss of her best friend in unsolved circumstances, which has clearly haunted her. Then there is the burden of her father’s care and the tension that arises from her legal work back home. I had a deep appreciation for Eliza’s inner strength, guts, determination and her ability to prevail in difficult circumstances. Ultimately, I wanted Eliza to succeed and come out the other side. I also wanted Eliza to put some of the demons of her past to rest. Clifford does a fine job of outlining Eliza’s journey, which is intertwined with a new case and a cold case. While the looming presence of the catastrophic bushfire two years ago looms over the unfolding story.
There were some surprising revelations, plot twists, digressions and detours thrown at me by Clifford, which I didn’t mind at all. Questions of trust, guilt, blame, recovery, acceptance and self-preservation play a heavy part of this electrifying crime novel. I certainly held my breath a few times!
Second Sight is a blazing and intense novel, underpinned by a visceral tone and a stifling small town atmosphere. In her follow up novel to All These Perfect Strangers, Aoife Clifford proves that she is a top notch Australian crime novelist, who is doing great things for this thriving genre.
Second Sight is book #20 of the 2020 Australian Women Writers Challenge
October 18, 2018
This book starts off well, but then seems to go on and on without any great sense of urgency. There are occasional big scenes, but not enough to make it a page turner - for me.
Eliza, the main character seemed, for a top lawyer, not to be the wisest; she gives out info when she shouldn't and holds it back when she should give it out. Not that she's alone in this: there are some oddly dodgy actions on the part of the older police in the story which don't help the mystery to be solved.
Interspersed with Eliza's story are chapter-length flashbacks - all of them focusing on a different character. Perhaps I wasn't paying enough attention, but I found the number of characters confusing, and I wasn't always sure why we needed to have their input.
Eliza, the main character seemed, for a top lawyer, not to be the wisest; she gives out info when she shouldn't and holds it back when she should give it out. Not that she's alone in this: there are some oddly dodgy actions on the part of the older police in the story which don't help the mystery to be solved.
Interspersed with Eliza's story are chapter-length flashbacks - all of them focusing on a different character. Perhaps I wasn't paying enough attention, but I found the number of characters confusing, and I wasn't always sure why we needed to have their input.
May 13, 2019
A solid Australian crime import, I'd place it between Candice Fox and Jane Harper on the How Fancy Is This Crime Novel scale.
Makes good use of its flashback structure and I was surprised at how many characters and plots I was able to keep track of without getting lost. I saw a few twists coming from quite far away but there was still another one or two that I didn't see coming, which always makes up for it.
Makes good use of its flashback structure and I was surprised at how many characters and plots I was able to keep track of without getting lost. I saw a few twists coming from quite far away but there was still another one or two that I didn't see coming, which always makes up for it.
March 1, 2022
This is my second Aoife Clifford book, and I’m surprised her work hasn’t gotten more traction in the US. The style and quality is hugely reminiscent of writers like Tana French.
Though they can be hard to read at times and bleak, these types of character driven mysteries are among my favorite things to read if they’re well crafted.
Clifford’s work is certainly that, and while the overall style here is similar to that of All These Perfect Strangers, Second Sight is an intriguing and unique read in its own right.
It lives strongly off the “you can go home again but you may regret it” mystery trope, which is one I frequently enjoy, and indeed that theme was well-executed here.
Though the plot has some real bleakness to it (TW for on-page rape) the characters are endearing and intriguing, and the story, however dark at times, is a very, very good one.
Though they can be hard to read at times and bleak, these types of character driven mysteries are among my favorite things to read if they’re well crafted.
Clifford’s work is certainly that, and while the overall style here is similar to that of All These Perfect Strangers, Second Sight is an intriguing and unique read in its own right.
It lives strongly off the “you can go home again but you may regret it” mystery trope, which is one I frequently enjoy, and indeed that theme was well-executed here.
Though the plot has some real bleakness to it (TW for on-page rape) the characters are endearing and intriguing, and the story, however dark at times, is a very, very good one.
August 2, 2018
When Eliza Carmody returns to the small seaside town she grew up in, some things have changed, and a lot hasn't. Often the way when you return to the small town of your youth. Carmody's changed a bit though, and this daughter of the local cop, now lawyer, is there as the legal representative of a large corporation, defending a bushfire class action bought by residents of Kinsale, after it was nearly wiped out in a massive bushfire.
On the way into town to meet up with an expert witness a road rage incident unfolds in front of her, rapidly spiralling into deadly assault, made even more shocking because the perpetrator turns out to be her childhood friend, Luke Tyrell. The victim is an Irish traveller, and the attack is shockingly quick, extremely violent, and cannot be excused by the trauma the bushfire had caused Tyrell. Right from this opening rush of action, Carmody is troubled. Representing the corporation being sued is enough to put her offside with the town, her own experiences growing up there had been difficult, and her family fractured enough already, to have her hypersensitive about perceptions on both sides.
That hypersensitivity in Clifford's hands translates elegantly into foreboding. As the narrative winds its way back through Carmody's childhood, and the present, the after-affects of the fire, and assault, right up until the discovery of an old skeleton, buried near the historic homestead, The Castle, Carmody is slightly out of kilter. She's dealing with changing life circumstances as her desire for career and success falters; and her best friend is happy, pregnant and content to remain in their home town, working as the local doctor. The sister she has a very fraught relationship with is also back, her brother-in-law now the local cop, and her father unresponsive after a car accident.
Back when she was a teenager, the night of a big party near The Castle, the night that some friendships were strained between a group of teenagers, whilst other relationships were strengthened, somebody disappeared. Nobody ever knew what had happened, now Carmody feels like she never did enough to find out why.
It's an interesting juxtaposition - the single-minded determined career woman, ambitious and focused; versus the young teenager, struggling with a tricky relationship with her father and sister, missing her dead mother desperately, confused and scattered enough to accept that one of her best friends can simply disappear into the night. The adult woman wondering what the teenage girl was thinking, slowly explaining it as her father and sister's recollections are revealed, and people all over town start to open up about what they know.
Clifford is working with a heap of themes here - small towns, inter-family tensions, buried secrets, things that a community collectively wants to forget, things that fester and grow and eat away. Upheaval is often what cracks some of these lightly held threads together, and a bushfire of the magnitude of the one that hit Kinsale is the perfect catalyst. It's shaken the foundations of the town, it's dragged somebody back into their orbit that's desperate enough to get to the bottom of past events that she's prepared to rock those foundations further, and she's a perfect character to do that. An insider who is also an outsider, fragile and crazy brave into the bargain.
https://www.austcrimefiction.org/revi...
On the way into town to meet up with an expert witness a road rage incident unfolds in front of her, rapidly spiralling into deadly assault, made even more shocking because the perpetrator turns out to be her childhood friend, Luke Tyrell. The victim is an Irish traveller, and the attack is shockingly quick, extremely violent, and cannot be excused by the trauma the bushfire had caused Tyrell. Right from this opening rush of action, Carmody is troubled. Representing the corporation being sued is enough to put her offside with the town, her own experiences growing up there had been difficult, and her family fractured enough already, to have her hypersensitive about perceptions on both sides.
That hypersensitivity in Clifford's hands translates elegantly into foreboding. As the narrative winds its way back through Carmody's childhood, and the present, the after-affects of the fire, and assault, right up until the discovery of an old skeleton, buried near the historic homestead, The Castle, Carmody is slightly out of kilter. She's dealing with changing life circumstances as her desire for career and success falters; and her best friend is happy, pregnant and content to remain in their home town, working as the local doctor. The sister she has a very fraught relationship with is also back, her brother-in-law now the local cop, and her father unresponsive after a car accident.
Back when she was a teenager, the night of a big party near The Castle, the night that some friendships were strained between a group of teenagers, whilst other relationships were strengthened, somebody disappeared. Nobody ever knew what had happened, now Carmody feels like she never did enough to find out why.
It's an interesting juxtaposition - the single-minded determined career woman, ambitious and focused; versus the young teenager, struggling with a tricky relationship with her father and sister, missing her dead mother desperately, confused and scattered enough to accept that one of her best friends can simply disappear into the night. The adult woman wondering what the teenage girl was thinking, slowly explaining it as her father and sister's recollections are revealed, and people all over town start to open up about what they know.
Clifford is working with a heap of themes here - small towns, inter-family tensions, buried secrets, things that a community collectively wants to forget, things that fester and grow and eat away. Upheaval is often what cracks some of these lightly held threads together, and a bushfire of the magnitude of the one that hit Kinsale is the perfect catalyst. It's shaken the foundations of the town, it's dragged somebody back into their orbit that's desperate enough to get to the bottom of past events that she's prepared to rock those foundations further, and she's a perfect character to do that. An insider who is also an outsider, fragile and crazy brave into the bargain.
https://www.austcrimefiction.org/revi...
November 5, 2018
I very much enjoyed Australian author Aoife Clifford's debut novel All These Perfect Strangers, released in 2016.
Second Sight is a little different to the first book (in neither a good nor bad way). It feels very Australian and I adored the opening pages - Clifford's vividly visceral descriptions and the easy way in which she gives us a strong sense of the small coastal town of Kinsale.
"The sun pours through the glass and warms my bones to jelly. I wind down the window to take in the salted scent of my childhood: sea mixed with the crusty tang from the deep-fryers in the takeaway shops. It's all sunscreen, tan lines, peeling skin and bad holiday traffic." p 2
There's a sense of foreboding and menace in this novel which reminded me of books like Jane Harper's The Dry, Eliza Henry Jones' Ache and and Sophie Laguna's The Choke.
I think part of it is the nostalgic realness of the setting which Clifford develops and delivers so well that I could sense it. (And I'm usually crap at that sort of thing.)
In addition to the actual environs or physical environment Clifford also does a great job with the characters and the baggage of the past. Again, she easily delves into that small-town feel and the parochial-ness (that can be both defiantly judgemental and accepting at the same time) that sometimes goes with it.
Eliza is a great character and we're taken on her 'journey' for the want of a better word. Not just from her teenage years to two decades on, but rather her own adulthood evolution.
Although the chapters around New Year's Eve in 1996 are shared through the eyes of several characters, we're directed in the present via Eliza and there as she struggles with the life she's built for herself. She talks about her ambition and single-minded focus to become a partner at her law firm and the fulfilment she thought it would bring.
She realises though that she's still waiting to feel the security or comfort she expected so events unfolding here are more confronting than she could have predicted.
"I thought it was the fire corrupting all it touched, but my problems didn't start with this case. I go all the way back to that New Year's Eve on the beach. At the start of that night I had two best friends. By the end of it I didn't. It's as simple as that and yet I did nothing about it, a fact I have been running from my all life. It's as if, in that water my heart froze and by the time I got to shore it had splintered on its own fault lines. I have tried to pretend it was nothing, when it was everything.
And with that realisation there is a hush." p 207
I liked that element of reflection - brought about by the events of the book's opening chapter, (in which Eliza's inadvertently involved through some twist of fate); that we can spend our lives yearning for something only to find it isn't what we were after.
Clifford also delves deeper via the relationships reflected in the past and present (particularly the tension between Eliza and her sister and father) and how they have influenced her life.
I also appreciated that Clifford draws on contemporary culture - videos going viral, hashtags we latch onto - all a reminder of our propensity to want to find the next 'thing' and leap onto something - a person's goodness or badness (all or nothing) - in an attempt to make sense of this world, find meaning or just make a statement.
Easily a read-in-one-sitting book, Second Sight by Aoife Clifford published by Simon & Schuster is now available.
Second Sight is a little different to the first book (in neither a good nor bad way). It feels very Australian and I adored the opening pages - Clifford's vividly visceral descriptions and the easy way in which she gives us a strong sense of the small coastal town of Kinsale.
"The sun pours through the glass and warms my bones to jelly. I wind down the window to take in the salted scent of my childhood: sea mixed with the crusty tang from the deep-fryers in the takeaway shops. It's all sunscreen, tan lines, peeling skin and bad holiday traffic." p 2
There's a sense of foreboding and menace in this novel which reminded me of books like Jane Harper's The Dry, Eliza Henry Jones' Ache and and Sophie Laguna's The Choke.
I think part of it is the nostalgic realness of the setting which Clifford develops and delivers so well that I could sense it. (And I'm usually crap at that sort of thing.)
In addition to the actual environs or physical environment Clifford also does a great job with the characters and the baggage of the past. Again, she easily delves into that small-town feel and the parochial-ness (that can be both defiantly judgemental and accepting at the same time) that sometimes goes with it.
Eliza is a great character and we're taken on her 'journey' for the want of a better word. Not just from her teenage years to two decades on, but rather her own adulthood evolution.
Although the chapters around New Year's Eve in 1996 are shared through the eyes of several characters, we're directed in the present via Eliza and there as she struggles with the life she's built for herself. She talks about her ambition and single-minded focus to become a partner at her law firm and the fulfilment she thought it would bring.
She realises though that she's still waiting to feel the security or comfort she expected so events unfolding here are more confronting than she could have predicted.
"I thought it was the fire corrupting all it touched, but my problems didn't start with this case. I go all the way back to that New Year's Eve on the beach. At the start of that night I had two best friends. By the end of it I didn't. It's as simple as that and yet I did nothing about it, a fact I have been running from my all life. It's as if, in that water my heart froze and by the time I got to shore it had splintered on its own fault lines. I have tried to pretend it was nothing, when it was everything.
And with that realisation there is a hush." p 207
I liked that element of reflection - brought about by the events of the book's opening chapter, (in which Eliza's inadvertently involved through some twist of fate); that we can spend our lives yearning for something only to find it isn't what we were after.
Clifford also delves deeper via the relationships reflected in the past and present (particularly the tension between Eliza and her sister and father) and how they have influenced her life.
I also appreciated that Clifford draws on contemporary culture - videos going viral, hashtags we latch onto - all a reminder of our propensity to want to find the next 'thing' and leap onto something - a person's goodness or badness (all or nothing) - in an attempt to make sense of this world, find meaning or just make a statement.
Easily a read-in-one-sitting book, Second Sight by Aoife Clifford published by Simon & Schuster is now available.
May 17, 2020
Second Sight (Simon and Schuster 2018), the second crime novel by Irish/Australian writer Aoife Clifford, is set in an Australian country town where everybody knows everybody else and they all remember their past shared histories. Lawyer Eliza Carmody is back in Kinsale to work on the biggest case of her career, but faces a backlash because she is defending a large corporation against a class action by the people of Kinsale related to a terrible bushfire that took lives and left an indelible trauma on the townsfolk. Eliza is only back for a day when she witnesses an old friend commit an assault. But like the Russian proverb, nobody lies like an eyewitness, and Eliza is forced to confront the truth of what she saw. The police are investigating the discovery of human remains at the local historic homestead, nicknamed The Castle, and Eliza is still devastated by the disappearance of her friend Grace when they were adolescents. Everyone thought Grace ran away, but as new evidence comes to light, and the mysteries deepen, the investigations into all the different crimes begin to weave together, and Eliza must face confronting truths about her own family. Everybody lies – and as the narrative progresses, we understand just how many people are lying about so many different things. And sometimes the truth is more painful than the lies.
With the recent terrible bushfires, this book is timely, even though it was released two years ago. Clifford deftly depicts the power and trauma of fire with sensory descriptions that are lush and evocative. The plot and sub-plots are complex, pacey and full of tension. The small-town setting sits well with other recently published Australian crime novels. If you enjoy writers such as Jane Harper, Garry Disher and Chris Hammer then Second Sight will appeal.
The structure of the narrative is really interesting. Interspersed with the main story are sections – flashbacks – from what happened the night Grace disappeared, New Year’s Eve 1996, but each section is written from the perspective of a different character. So while we have the main story told from Eliza’s perspective, these shattered images of that one night delivered by several different people who were there, all giving their own version of what happened, or what they saw or heard, come together to form a mosaic that slowly builds until by the end of the novel, it is a glittering ball of sharp shards of truth.
With a large cast of characters, authentic and pithy dialogue, some humour and a romance thrown in, this novel is a great addition to the Australian literary crime scene.
With the recent terrible bushfires, this book is timely, even though it was released two years ago. Clifford deftly depicts the power and trauma of fire with sensory descriptions that are lush and evocative. The plot and sub-plots are complex, pacey and full of tension. The small-town setting sits well with other recently published Australian crime novels. If you enjoy writers such as Jane Harper, Garry Disher and Chris Hammer then Second Sight will appeal.
The structure of the narrative is really interesting. Interspersed with the main story are sections – flashbacks – from what happened the night Grace disappeared, New Year’s Eve 1996, but each section is written from the perspective of a different character. So while we have the main story told from Eliza’s perspective, these shattered images of that one night delivered by several different people who were there, all giving their own version of what happened, or what they saw or heard, come together to form a mosaic that slowly builds until by the end of the novel, it is a glittering ball of sharp shards of truth.
With a large cast of characters, authentic and pithy dialogue, some humour and a romance thrown in, this novel is a great addition to the Australian literary crime scene.
October 19, 2024
4.5 ⭐️
October 16, 2024
Another excellent mystery, police procedural story for me. Whizzed by with action and interesting characters. The rating is not good which puzzles me but I am looking forward to read another from Clifford.
Recommend
Recommend
August 9, 2019
Past And Present Australian Crime! (TW suicide/ rape on page)
Ever since reading Jane Harper I lunge for Australian crime novels and Clifford has fast become another favorite of mine. This one starts with action right from the start as Eliza Carmody is visiting her home town because of a case she’s on when she witnesses a crime. From there, the past and present are just two trains speeding towards each other! Carmody is a lawyer working on a case basically against the town she grew up in. The town where her father, and now brother-in-law, were/are the police. The town where her best friend disappeared from when they were teenagers, a case her father worked on. Now Carmody will have to deal with a town full of secrets about to find out who she’s working for, a sister she doesn’t get along with, a dying father, the crime she witnessed, and what really happened the night her best friend disappeared. This is a great crime read for fans of past and present chapters, missing person case, legal cases, towns reckoning with their past, and family drama. So good, I inhaled this one!
--from Book Riot's Unusual Suspects newsletter: https://link.bookriot.com/view/56a820...
Ever since reading Jane Harper I lunge for Australian crime novels and Clifford has fast become another favorite of mine. This one starts with action right from the start as Eliza Carmody is visiting her home town because of a case she’s on when she witnesses a crime. From there, the past and present are just two trains speeding towards each other! Carmody is a lawyer working on a case basically against the town she grew up in. The town where her father, and now brother-in-law, were/are the police. The town where her best friend disappeared from when they were teenagers, a case her father worked on. Now Carmody will have to deal with a town full of secrets about to find out who she’s working for, a sister she doesn’t get along with, a dying father, the crime she witnessed, and what really happened the night her best friend disappeared. This is a great crime read for fans of past and present chapters, missing person case, legal cases, towns reckoning with their past, and family drama. So good, I inhaled this one!
--from Book Riot's Unusual Suspects newsletter: https://link.bookriot.com/view/56a820...
February 16, 2020
Another solid Aussie crime novel. There was a lot going on at times, but I very much enjoyed this one.
December 26, 2019
This book drew me in at the beginning and never really let go. The setting is a small town in Australia where everybody knows everybody. There are also a lot of secrets. The main character is Eliza, a policeman’s daughter, who is back in the town she left twenty years earlier. Her father is dying. Her sister is the opposite of welcoming, antagonistic and bitter. Her first day in town has her witnessing an old friend assaulting someone. The story snowballs from there, focusing on what is happening in the present, and what happened 20 years ago, when Grace, one of Eliza’s best friends, disappeared on New Year’s
Eve. I liked the flashbacks to that night, the story carried along by different narrators. A very satisfying story with a good mystery and interesting characters.
Eve. I liked the flashbacks to that night, the story carried along by different narrators. A very satisfying story with a good mystery and interesting characters.
September 12, 2019
A very entertaining read, set in a small coastal town in Victoria, with main character Eliza Carmody returning in her capacity as a lawyer. She’s the best thing about the book. There’s an ongoing mystery connected to a bushfire, but the plot keeps returning to events many years beforehand. It has so many twists and turns it can be hard to keep up with characters, now and then. However the action keeps up a steady pace and there’s a very authentic feel to attitudes and conversations between longtime country townspeople. A lot of things become clear all at once in the concluding pages.
August 27, 2018
This was a well written, character and plot driven mystery novel, set in a small Australian coastal town. The two storylines, one told partially in flashbacks, drive the story and are well paced and intertwined, and only resolved in the last few pages - keeps you turning pages until the very end.
I really enjoyed this book.
I was given a copy of this book by the publisher in exchange for an honest review.
I really enjoyed this book.
I was given a copy of this book by the publisher in exchange for an honest review.
December 30, 2019
3.5 stars. "There is nothing more dangerous than a bored teenager in a country town. It's when the stupidest ideas start making sense." Clifford nails the feeling and atmosphere of a small town in this crime novel set in a small town in Australia. Events in the present bring back memories of a girl that disappeared in 1996, believed to have run away. Solid storytelling with some twists I didn't see coming.
November 8, 2019
I picked up this book after the librarian noticed me looking at some mysteries they'd set out before Halloween. She quickly pointed me to the newly released shelves. I'm so glad I browsed them because I completely dived into Eliza Carmody's world as she tries to solve a disappearance that most thought already resolved. Well-written with vivid characters and descriptions, this novel is a page turner that will keep you guessing until the final pages.
August 6, 2019
When Eliza Carmody was a teenager, she left her small town of Kinsale to go to boarding school. Since then, she's become a successful lawyer in the city, but has remained estranged from her family. Eliza, though, returns to Kinsale to meet an expert for a case. While there, Eliza witnesses a violent assault. This act plunges Eliza into the dynamics of Kinsale, a town still recovering from a bushfire that killed several residents two years ago. It also causes her to think about the summer she was sixteen, when one of her best friends, Grace, disappeared. Second Sight explores Eliza's search for the truth about the cause of the fire, the reason behind the assault, and who was responsible for what happened to Grace, all amid the backdrop of a small Australian town. Aoife Clifford has written a novel similar to Jane Harper and Julia Keller's Bell Elkin's mysteries.
January 23, 2020
My favorite trope in fiction is probably the person-returns-home-after-a-long-time-to-confront-secrets-of-the-past one. That's the premise of SECOND SIGHT, which explains why I picked it up. The story is compelling, the characters interesting, and the Australian setting atmospheric. The plot had enough twists to keep me guessing and the murderer caught me by surprise, which doesn't always happen since I read a lot of mystery/thrillers. While SECOND SIGHT is undeniably bleak and depressing, I still enjoyed it. I'm anxious to see what Clifford does next.
July 22, 2020
It started out great. Then it definitely slowed down and it was hard to see where the story was going.
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