Panic – Catherine Jinks

The main character of Panic by Catherine Jinks (kindly sent to me for review by my friends at Text Publishing) jumps out of the frying pan and head-first into the fire in this “tense, claustrophobic thriller”.

Bronte is desperate to retreat from the world after a video of her drunken rant about her ex-boyfriend goes viral, so a volunteer position on a remote NSW estate caring for an elderly woman seems ideal. Only, once she arrives, she realises she’s signed up for way more than she bargained for. The elderly woman’s daughter is a conspiracy theorist of the sovereign citizen sub-type, and hidden away in the house are rifles, panic rooms, and enough canned food to keep them going for far longer than Bronte intends to stay.

Jinks doesn’t ease the reader in. Bronte’s new “boss” has a charged confrontation with police in the early chapters, and Panic only ramps up from there. “Not only was I staying with a bunch of nutty new-age anarchists,” Bronte says, “I was staying with a bunch of paranoid nutty new-age anarchists,” (page 87).

I love the realistic depiction of siege psychology in Panic. Hollywood would have us believe that it’s all high-stakes drama, but adrenaline and tension can’t sustain your energy indefinitely. People under siege (as Bronte, and the woman she cares for, and the cops helping them find out) inevitably get bored, and tired, and hungry. It also isn’t “over” when you stumble out into the waiting arms of paramedics and journalists.

The pacing of Panic is a little strange, in that there are two “climaxes” with a protracted trial briefly described in between. Even so, it’s a solid Australian crime thriller that nails the cognitive dissonance of sovereign citizen nutjobs.

Read Panic on audiobook via Libro.fm here. (affiliate link)