Whipping Boy

by Gabrielle Lord

When Sydney lawyer Cass Meredith is appointed head of a state enquiry into a child pornography racket, its difficult to know who to trust.

Cass discovers that the closer she gets to the men who abuse children, the worse the danger to her eight year old son, and when Moz goes missing, Cass must face the worst the underworld can throw at her, head on.

Genres: Fiction, Crime, Australia

339 pages, Paperback

First published August 3, 1992

About the author

Gabrielle Craig Lord is an Australian writer who has been described as Australia's first lady of crime.

She survived being ‘razed’ by the nuns, acquired an education despite this, and after working in many different areas, sales, teaching, brick-cleaning, peach-picking and packing, and in the Public Service as an employment officer, started writing seriously aged 30.

Her first two manuscripts ended up composting the tomatoes at her market garden – another attempt to make a living – but the third one FORTRESS was picked up internationally and made into a feature film starring Rachel Ward. A later novel WHIPPING BOY was made into a telemovie starring Sigrid Thornton. The film rights money, coinciding with her daughter leaving school, allowed Gabrielle to resign and instead of getting up at 4.30am and writing for several hours before heading off for work, she could write full-time and lead a more ‘normal’ writer’s life – hanging around with scientists and detectives, badgering forensic anthropologists (she studied some Anatomy at Sydney university) and doing work experience with a busy private security business and of course, writing.

Research is everything, she says. ‘Out of my contacts with experts (who are always far too modest to describe themselves that way) I get not only the fine-tuning necessary for today’s savvy readers, but also wonderful incidents and images that enrich and enlarge my books.’

Gabrielle’s interests are very simple. ‘After a misspent youth, I don’t have many brain cells left so I enjoy walking, meditation, singing, gardening, chatting with close friends, being with my family and grandkids, feeding my goldfish and keeping up to date with bodywork and enlightened psychotherapy.’

Gabrielle has now written fourteen adult novels and a novel for young adults. Once the 12 books of Conspiracy 365 are completed, this tally will be a tad bigger! Following this mammoth endeavour she already has plans for another three adult novels and two more YAs.
2013

Reviews

[Margaret · Rating 3 out of 5]

Audio. Not keen on the voice. Engaging plot, a little contrived. Must read more of GL.

[Stephen · Rating 3 out of 5]

My second book by this author. The first book I read of hers was OK but had some pretty preposterous ideas that even I, as a non crime aficionado, could see through easily.

In this book we confirm that this was not a one off but a habit. I won't read any more from this author.

Not that this was terrible. The book was competently written, the author's prose was easy and fluid, the characterisations were pretty good too.

The story is about a female detective brought into a somewhat misogynistic New South Wales (Australia) police force to solve a gruesome murder of a teenage boy. We quickly learn that there is a grand conspiracy and corruption at high levels and a paedophile ring.

The plot was hard hitting but offset with some compassion, and a nice character in the detective's son. Nevertheless the detective seems to be dropped into this position with absolutely no idea how to conduct a police investigation, and she as well as others do things that no police officer would dream of doing (honest or corrupt). She basically stumbles over a series of lucky breaks, but you feel her part was entirely superfluous.

She was pretty hopeless on the home life front too. I just wanted to give her a good talking to!

Anyway, as for my first Gabrielle Lord book, this was OK. As I said above, I will not be reading more.

[Oanh · Rating 3 out of 5]

Enjoyed this, but not unreservedly so. The writing is good, but the story and characterisation of main character poor. It seemed a very interesting set up and Cass Meredith could be an interesting character, but I don't believe that she's a lawyer. She just wouldn't do or think how she thought in this novel if that were so. She's not forensic, or intellectual. She 'solved' the crime by bashing through and with the help of an aggravatingly all knowing male partner. And the crime solved too neatly, as if Lord shied away from the real horror underlying her set up. I'll read more; the plotting was interesting and Lord has the hallmarks of good, engaging crime writing. After all, I find Peter Temple aggravating and yet I still enjoy reading his writing! Lord deserves at least equal treatment on that front from me!

[Melanie Hunt · Rating 2 out of 5]

This was my introduction to Gabrielle Lord, and because I picked up the book based on what I knew of her reputation as a crime writer I had high expectations. As such, I was disappointed. The plotting was a bit clumsy and the prose was mediocre in places. The protagonist, Cass Meredith, irritated me with her bullishness (and not it a charming V.I. Warshawski way)and lack of humour. It was also very poorly edited -- not Lord's fault -- but is was full of copy editing errors than any decent line editor should have picked up. I'm of the opinion this is not the best exemplar of Lord's crime fiction and I will try will something else of hers that I hope better serves her reputation.

[Mary · Rating 3 out of 5]

It's a bit difficult to review a 22 year old book based on then current affairs. The real problem is that the good bits of Gabrielle Lord's characterisations have not made consistent appearances in this novel until the end. That makes the female protagonist have to do a lot of dumb things and the male one do some incomprehensible ones in terms of character development. Some very good suspense though. And I LOVE Moz. In fact most of the subsidiary characters are very good. And the main ones become real at the end. Not Ms Lord's best attempt.

[Jonathan Solomon · Rating 4 out of 5]

I don't usually read crime novels but this was a great read. Chilling, suspenseful and terrifying. Gabrielle Lord has provided a carefully constructed plot that left me surprised with its twists and turns. What struck me was the strong sense of place with Sydney being its own sort of character. Kings Cross and Rushcutters Bay strongly featured.

[Joan]

Horrible sometimes in its description of pedophiles but a page turner throughout. Will Cass and her son survive, will her father return.....???