This was a book that suffered from a form of bipolarity. It was either a love story in which the main characters were interested in solving a murder mystery, or it was a murder mystery in which the main characters happened to be looking for love, but either way, the result was a disjointed, hard to follow story where the details didn't seem to make sense and I could have read only the last 60 pages or so and understood the entire plot arc of the story.

After finishing the story, I found out that this was written in part as the author's thesis for her MFA in Creative Writing. She had wanted to emphasize the role of women in society, and thus many of her characters don't conform to traditional gender roles.

I wish I had known that going into this book, because I would have had a much stronger appreciation for certain characters. As it was, I felt the main character, Sarah, was not a likeable character because of her absolute disdain for gender norms. She read as more of an alcoholic/abusive male character, and thus I found her absolutely repulsive. She lacked empathy of any sort, and it's not until she becomes a victim of ridicule from her sister that she seems to have any emotions at all other than lust, anger, or drunken regret.

I found myself not wanting her to find love with the leading male love interest, reporter Hall Flynn (or Flynn Hall, I don't remember which). Hall was definitely the more effeminate of the two, having been wronged by his ex-girlfriend and his best friend and shying away from meaningful relationships to avoid being hurt. He has all the empathy that Sarah lacks, and is willing to not follow the story of a lifetime when it looks like it will put Sarah at risk. Meanwhile, Sarah is pushing him away and, in Hall's words, "[being] crass" by letting him know that she didn't false advertise, and sex was all she was after (although we know better...I think).

I think Poppy Gee has potential as a writer, but this could have gone through a few more revisions before being published. Some elements just didn't fit together, and the attempt at a happy ending seems so rushed that I found myself disgusted by the 180 degree turn some characters had. Unless she was making a statement about how shallow Tasmanian people are, the ending falls very flat.

Overall, while I see the potential, this one was not an enjoyable read. At one point, I actually chose to scrub my bathtub instead of sitting down to finish the book... ( )

This novel takes its name from its setting: a beautiful stretch of Tasmania’s east coast which does exist in the real world, though here it is given a village, a shop and a camp ground which do not. The spot forms the backdrop for a group of holiday shacks which have been used by the same families for years. Last summer a local teenage girl went missing and hasn’t been seen since, now the body of a young European tourist has been found. And the question on everyone’s mind…is one of them responsible?

My family used to holiday in the same beachside location every summer so I immediately felt a connection to BAY OF FIRES. I even recognised a lot of the just-beneath-the-surface discords on display amongst the regular visitors. Gee does a good job of showing both the monotony and the comfort offered by this sort of set-up and provides two key characters to show the reader what’s really going on in this community.

Sarah Avery offers the insider’s perspective. She is the eldest daughter of one of the regular families and is a somewhat reluctant participant in this year’s holiday, partly because she is coming to grips with some troubles in her personal life. She’s staying with her parents and younger sister. Hall Flynn, a journalist for a Launceston newspaper who has been assigned to cover the story, provides the outsider’s point of view. He takes a room at the guest house at which the girl whose body has been found was staying. Between them, these two piece together the story of what has happened to the two girls, Sarah using her knowledge of the regulars and Hall using his observational skills and ability to ease himself into local events without causing too many ripples.

BAY OF FIRES succeeds as a work of observation about a small community that appears to be close-knit on the surface. The death and disappearance – and the almost total lack of formal progress on either case – highlight all the personality clashes and not-so-petty differences of opinion that have been lying dormant for years. People’s fears lead to finger pointing, attempts at vigilante justice and plain meanness and I found this element of the book – a kind of character study en masse – quite enthralling.

As a work of crime fiction I thought it a little less successful, with the resolution being somewhat obvious and the lack of police presence and progress not being explained terribly satisfactorily. That said, I did appreciate the crime’s unconventional resolution as it seemed to be in keeping with the world Gee had depicted.

Overall this début novel has much to commend it and I will certainly be on the lookout for more of Gee’s writing. In BAY OF FIRES she has demonstrated a flair for depicting evocative settings and the personality shifts that happen to average people when unexpectedly terrible things happen around them.

This is the first book by poppy Gee. It is set in the Bay of Fires on the Tasmanian coast. The story revolves around Erica an interesting character. There are 2 murders in the bay and Hall is sent to write about them for his newspaper.
The main characters are well developed in the book but I feel the story line is quite week. Erica is an either love her or hate her character. ( )

This book was not what I expected - not your typical murder mystery. As the title shows it is set in the Bay of fires area of Tasmania. Not a lot of energy was devoted to the actual murder I felt but the descriptions of the locals who lived in this area and the visitors who come to this area to holiday over the summer were well done. It gave you a real feel for the community ( )

It is possible that the reader of a lot of mystery fiction could come to BAY OF FIRES with a predisposition to like it very much. It's an unusual twist on what is, frequently, a rather formulaic style. More importantly, it's a lot more about the people involved in a community than the tragic death.

The story revolves around Sarah Avery, who was second on the scene when the bikini-clad body is found on the beach. She and her family are long-term holiday residents at the Bay of Fires, so they were there the year before when a young girl went missing. As were a lot of the characters in the story, this being the sort of holiday destination where people own shacks and return every year.

The only incomer in the story is Journalist Hall Flynn, sent to the coast to write a story on the dead girl, he soon finds himself attracted to the odd little community, and to Sarah.

The people who occupy this mostly transient community are a very quirky bunch, and because of the style of BAY OF FIRES there's an intense and concentrated view of them. Avery herself is quite a character, a fishing fanatic, obviously running away from a relationship that went pear-shaped in Queensland, she's a prickly, tricky character. Her encounter with the local teenage peeping tom is just one of the problems she's trying to process, her attraction to Flynn another big problem. Although Flynn quickly comes to share her feelings of protectiveness for the local intellectually disabled town loner who is picked on, bullied and suspected of both the murder and the disappearance.

Cleverly there's no shortage of suspects within the community, and whilst there's not a lot of overt concentration on the actual murder, or even, until towards the end, the disappearance of the young girl, there is a slow build up of possible suspects, of strange behaviour and odd occurrences that make you question the tranquility of the location.

Being a huge fan of the why's of crime fiction, BAY OF FIRES ticked just about every box for me. It's not absolutely perfect, and there are some parts that do wander around a bit, as well as the occasional feeling of disconnection or lack of purpose. Minor problems in what is overall an interesting, and refreshing debut novel.

http://www.austcrimefiction.org/review/bay-fires-poppy-gee ( )