One Sunday by Joy Dettman

Publisher's Synopsis

Early one Sunday, the town of Molliston wakes to the news that a young bride is dead.

The year is 1929. The Great War with Germany has been fought and won, but at an immense cost to the small community. Death is too familiar here. So many sons were lost. So many daughters would never be wives; so many grandchildren would never be born. Racial hatred is like a bushfire in the belly of some.

And the dead girl is found only yards from the property of old Joe Reichenberg, a German.

Tom Thompson, the local cop, lost his two sons in Gallipoli. He believes he has come to terms with his bereavement - until that Sunday.

Slowly, the true face of Molliston is exposed. By midnight, a full moon is offering its light - and a glimmer of hope.

My Review of One Sunday by Joy Dettman

Life in a country town in Australia in the 1920s was tough. The war had taken its toll, the drought was an ever present factor and every day was a struggle, particularly in the summer months. Joy Dettman portrays this beautifully in One Sunday and adds a further destabilising factor. Murder. This is a completely absorbing story that takes place over the course of a single day, a single hellishly brutal Sunday.

The scene is the tiny town of Molliston in country Victoria and it's the searing summer of 1929. This is a township that is still reeling from the losses suffered during the war, their land ravaged by drought and bushfires. Those men who weren't killed in action have returned to the town horribly disfigured or mentally scarred, ensuring that the local German family is widely hated by the community.

In the early morning of Sunday, 13 January a young woman from the town is murdered and left beside the road at the front gate of the German family. The shock of the death coupled with the location of her body sends the town into an uproar, stirring the local gossips into action and igniting the racial hatred that had already been on the simmer for quite some time.

The first reaction is to wonder who would want to brutally beat a beautiful innocent young woman to death and then leave her lying by the side of the road. But if you kick over a rock you invariably disturb the secret world hiding underneath, and when the rock that is Molliston is overturned, it's astounding the secrets that come scuttling out into the open. The innocent may not be quite as pure as first thought and the harmless may just be very good at hiding their true self.

Investigating the death is the local policeman, Constable Tom Thompson. He's a cop dedicated to his job, but is also plagued with troubles of his own. He lost two sons in the war and is now burdened with a wife who has gone insane through grief. His day is spent juggling his job while ensuring that his wife is being cared for so that she won't hurt herself or someone else. Although one of the town's most tolerant and understanding men, even his patience will prove to be tested to its very limit before the day is out.

But murder was not the only game in town on this busy Saturday night / Sunday morning. Admitted to the local hospital was a young woman who had gone into labour after jumping off a passing train. It looks as though the doctor was able to save the baby but its unmarried mother may not be so fortunate.

Molliston is a deeply divided town, filled with suspicion, with many harbouring a deep-seated hatred for Germans and carrying their own closely guarded secrets. The murder on this Sunday morning could be sufficient to raise the simmering tensions that have been building both within households and out to a shattering conflict that will affect every member of the community.

More than just a murder mystery, this is a fascinating peek into the dynamics of a small town in Australia in the 1920s. It's a glimpse into the struggles of families following the war as they attempt to get over the terrible consequences of losing loved ones. Joy Dettman has done a wonderful job in defining and shaping her characters and in bringing them sharply to life.

One Sunday takes place over a single day, beginning in the early, stiflingly hot sleepless hours as Tom Thompson roams his house restlessly before finally snatching some sleep only to be woken by the news of the discovery of the body. It's the start of a very long and tiring day for the policeman.

As the day wears on, the lives of the townsfolk are revealed to us in broad detail. How they have come to be living in Molliston, the tragedies they have suffered that will prove to be significant in the how the rest of the day will unfold. In fact, it's Dettman's analysis of her characters that brings the story to life, the gossips, the loners, the rich and the struggling, the hateful and the hated whose stories are all interwoven into a tragic small-town tale.

The story is allowed to unfold in a carefully measured fashion allowing tensions to build, personalities to become familiar to us and inter-relationships to be established. By the day's end it is obvious that the scene has been set for a momentous confluence of events that have been expertly orchestrated.

One Sunday is an outstanding mystery, playing on the fears and prejudices of small minded people. It's a story of forbidden love, misunderstanding and regret and effortlessly draws you in and guarantees that you will be thinking about it long after you've finished.