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Maralinga (2009)

by Judy Nunn(Favorite Author)

3.76 of 5 Votes: 3

languge

English

genre

Fiction

publisher

Random House Australia

review 1: Maralinga is a novel based on events surrounding the British nuclear bomb tests conducted in outback South Australia in the 1950s. There are some shocking revelations, cover-ups, and a couple of convenient unexplained deaths (murder, or suicide?) Journalist Elizabeth Hoffmann travels to Australia and secures a job with The Advertiser newspaper in Adelaide so she can find out the truth about her fiance's death. Her story is an interesting one, in that she has to use some subterfuge to make her name in a male-dominted profession. Unfortunately at times author Judy Nunn allows the narrative flow to become bogged down in Elizabeth's domestic situation and evolving relationship with an Australian Army Colonel. It provided the book with some cozy padding, but I was inclined... more to skim these sections to get back to the main theme, i.e. the Maralinga tests. I was pleased though to have the controversy surrounding the legacy of these tests exposed to a broader audience through the medium of entertaining fiction.
review 2: This is an interesting novel about Australia in the 1960" Cold War mentality and how the British and Americans conducted nuclear tests in the Outback with little regard for the flora, fauna or Aborigines. The author is a prolific Australian writer and I would be interested in reading some of her other novels...great look into that time and that place...it is based on fact as you might imagine. I recommend it. less

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