The Price of an Orphan

Rating:
Summary: suspense doesn't last
Review: Carlon's novel is saved by the presence of Johnnie, the 9 year old orphan who witnesses a murder in the first pages of the novel. No one believes Johnnie, and because no one believes him, the rest of the novel takes place - his desperate fear of the villain ("Felt Hat"), and his longing to stay close to people, but then a camping trip with his adopted mother and another lady, who of course could not be - would never be - the killer. So of course Johnnie thinks the trip will be safe, and of course he's wrong.

Like so much detective fiction, too many of the key plot developments are a bit too convenient. Unlikely coincidences,
strangers who are amazingly observant and conscientious...and voila, the mystery develops and is resolved. But despite the presence of the improbabilities, the novel still reads well and still holds our interest.

This owes itself in part to the fact that the main character is a child, and he is nevertheless one of many who play the role of "detective" in this unconventional detective novel. The reader likes Johnnie because he is an innocent child, and we sympathize because he is telling a truth which no one believes and because he is already an orphan under the guardianship of a couple who don't seem to care very much about him at first.

While this novel is intriguing because it is not conventional - there is no single detective figure in the novel, but rather it requires a combined (and conveniently so) effort, and the villain is not one of the usual suspects - it still falls flat at times. The beginning is packed with suspence, and while Carlon retains some of the suspence by blurring (at times, before the culprit is revealed) the voice/thoughts of Johnnie and the killer, eventually it just fizzles. With all of the convenient twists and turns, the reader just takes it for granted that at some point, some phone call is going to make it all make sense. The sense that Johnnie or his mother will be seriously hurt, the sense that perhaps the killer might get away with the crime after all - this sense might be strong at first, but eventually it dissolves. The question is not "if" but "when and why not already, this journey has gone on long enough."

Rating:
Summary: Suspense in book form!
Review: In "The Price of an Orphan" Patricia Carlson combines traditional detective fiction and spine-tingling suspense in one quick read of a novel. Johnnie, a nine year old orphan of criminal parentage is sent to live with a childless couple on a cattle station in Australia. Seen as a lazy, stubborn boy with a penchant for lying, his foster parents and the surrounding community naturally do not believe him when he claims to have witnessed a murder. Unfortunately for Johnnie, he did witness the murder, and the murderer knows he was there. The latter two-thirds of the novel consist of Johnnie and his foster mother, Kay, struggling to escape a cunning trap set by the murderer in the wild, harsh outback. Telling the rest of the tale would give away the suspense, thus the best part of the story, however, rest assured that the reader is in for an exciting ride.
To create this twisting, suspenseful story, Carlton incorporates ideas that are traditionally not found in detective fiction. One is her lack of a main "detective". It takes a community to solve this puzzling mystery. Carlton also utilizes psychology in two ways. One is obviously in the use of psychological suspense for the reader. The other is a study in the cruelty and self-absorption that can be created within the mind of an individual under duress.
Finally, Carlton's setting the mystery in Australia underlines the country's past that is rooted in criminality and escape from identity. When Australia was still a penal colony of England, many criminals were sent there in order to "start over" (i.e. away from the law-abiding citizens of England). Many others escaped to Australia to reinvent themselves away from all who knew them. These aspects of criminality are utilized in Carlton's novel concerning both Johnnie (the communities lack of belief in his stories due to his criminal parentage) and the main villain. This novel is quite the interesting combination of detecting and psychology...a quick, wonderful book!

Rating:
Summary: Australian Thriller
Review: In her 1960's novel, Price of an Orphan, Australian novelist Patricia Carlon creates a suspenseful thriller in which a mischievous, 9-year-old orphan, Johnnie, stumbles upon a murder and pieces together the facts of the crime. The bulk of the story tells how the murderer then torments him in the vast, rugged New South Wales outback. Carlon's masterfully woven tale gives her readers genuine surprises throughout the entire book. The reader is oblivious even to the murderer's gender until a quarter of the way into the book. Even though Carlon's lack of a central detective figure can arguably exclude her thriller from the typical detective fiction genre, mistaken identities, false hopes and surprises keep readers anxiously turning the page until the conclusion of the story. However, much of the novel's magnificence lies not in the mystery itself, but rather the psychological realism in the plot's uncanny parallel to Australia's history and identity. As a rebellious, ill-behaved, convict's son, the main character Johnnie recalls Australia's founding as a penal colony. Moreover, the shocking revelation that the main villain has come to the city of Quidong to begin a different identity subtly reminds readers how Australia has traditionally served as a place for banished criminals to start a new life. The novel's description of the vast outback constantly adds to the notion that Australia is ripe for creating new identities. A post-colonial reminder of Australia's involvement in World War II echoes behind the terror of the villain's atrocious acts and the plot's suspense. Although the story refuses to give the villain any striking redeeming quality, the fact that the villain's history includes a brutal war camp prison stay in Malaya begs readers to see the villain as a victim of her past circumstances. For the sake of England, the villain suffered in a prison camp and, Carlon's story implicitly argues, thus developed a ruthless, sadistic personality. In the midst of the villain's constant, cruel treatment to Johnnie and his mother, Carlon recalls that the villain has learned her brutal and pitiless methods from the war camp in which the villain was victim. The history of prison war camps makes it impossible for readers to feel full contempt towards the villain. Carlon's story ends with an ambiguous conclusion, as the readers never discover the ultimate fate of the villain and Johnnie. However, this ambiguity emphasizes the tension between feeling utter contempt villain's actions in the story and feeling sympathy for the villain's brutal history in the prison camps.