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Murder mystery meets social satire meets Sydney housing crisis polemic in Joanna Jenkins’ new book Bad Neighbours, which my friends at Allen & Unwin were kind enough to send me for review.
Once again, the story revolves around hot-shot lawyer Ruth Dawson. She’s moved back to the big city, and she’s bought herself an apartment – even, begrudgingly, joining the building’s owners association. All of its members are mildly concerned about Ben, the young man who appears to be living in the outdoor gardening shed, but not concerned enough to actually do anything about it.
“Somebody should have done something”, they all say, when he is murdered in his swag.
The pacing of Bad Neighbours is a little uneven – the first half meanders a little through the trials and tribulations of shared living space, but then the tension rockets up at around the 200-page mark. Perhaps too much so, because the ultimate resolution was slightly convoluted. Still, it’s highly readable, as we’ve come to expect from Jenkins, and the ending is definitely satisfying.
Honestly, my favourite part of Bad Neighbours was simply how nice it is to read a murder mystery where all the action to solve it is taken by women. The men in Bad Neighbours mostly just get in the way.
Oh, and my favourite character was, of course, Mavis the French bulldog. The basement-apartment-dwelling tech bro Lucas didn’t seek permission from the owners association before moving her in, much to their chagrin. Mavis remains happy and healthy throughout the novel, and gets lots of lovely long walks.
P.S. You might recall that I reviewed Jenkins’ previous novel, The Bluff. If you look closely at the blurbs in the opening pages of Bad Neighbours, you’ll spot a recommendation from yours truly!
Read Bad Neighbours on audiobook via Libro.fm here. (affiliate link)
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