For all his initial absence (he returns eventually to save the day with the able assistance of a concerned local), he's a promising character. ' novel you'd be forgiven for wondering how much investigating he plans to do when his first appearance is well into the story, and for a rather short time into the bargain. When the body of young Maggie is discovered, local police aren't particularly short of dodgy characters to consider - from her violent and particularly nasty stepfather, through to the co-owner of the local brothel, to say nothing of the mysterious tramp hanging around the area.įlagged as an 'Otto Berliner investigates.

The town of Daylesford in those days was a wild, frontier like place full of blow-in's and more established locals, with some downright nasty goings on. The dreadful circumstances in which Maggie has grown up, married, and died are carefully laid in this novel, avoiding the more gruesome details without glossing over the reality too heavily.

When the body of young newly-wed Maggie Stuart is found in the home she shares with her much older husband it's all to easy to forget that young is around 17 years old, older husband means arranged / quickly married off for reasons that become apparent, and with family is often the least safe place you can be. Based on a true story, set in the Victorian Goldfields in the 1860's, THE UNFORTUNATE VICTIM is part fiction, part reminder that life in those days, particularly for women, was not easy, pleasant or fair.

The Unfortunate Victim by Greg Pyers