The Carnival Is Over by Greg Woodland

Publisher's Synopsis

1971—Hal is seventeen, with dreams of escaping from Moorabool to a life in the city. But right now he’s on a good behaviour bond and stuck in a job he hates, paying off the car he ‘borrowed’ and crashed. Hal’s packing-room job makes him a target for workplace bullies and the friendship of the older, more worldly Christine is all that makes each day bearable. So when she doesn’t turn up for work, he’s on the alert.

So is Sergeant Mick Goodenough. But he already knows what’s happened to Christine: the same thing that happened to the newly elected deputy mayor. When another gruesome ‘accident’ occurs in Moorabool, Goodenough suspects there’s something sinister going on behind the scenes at the abattoir.

Mick and Hal are both determined to dig up the truth. Before long each of them is going to find himself in mortal danger and running for his life.

My Review of The Carnival Is Over by Greg Woodland

We return to the small NSW town of Moorabool and it’s 1971, 5 years after the events chronicled in The Night Whistler. Mick Goodenough has now become the town police sergeant and he still seems to be waging a one-man battle against locals intent on undermining his authority at every turn. 

As was evidenced in The Night Whistler, Woodland once again displays his ability to completely immerse his reader in the rural flavour of the local landscape and the time in which it is set. The early 70s has a distinct feel and through the descriptions of the shopfronts, the fashions of the time and the prejudices that were the norm, he manages to bring Moorabool in 1971 to life.

Young Hal Humphries is now a late teen and prone to getting himself into trouble, enough trouble that Mick had to intervene after a joyride in a stolen car went wrong. Mick’s intervention results in Hal being placed at the local abattoirs rather than doing gaol time.

And it’s the abattoirs that lies at the epicentre of the mystery and intrigue in the book. A couple of apparent suicides take place close together. The first is the town’s deputy mayor who also holds a board position at the abattoirs and the second is Christine, a shift supervisor in the boning room of the abattoirs. It’s really only Mick who has suspects there is something a lot more sinister than suicide at play here.

Given no corroborating support from the pathologist, he finds himself pushing the proverbial uphill in getting any momentum with a possible double murder investigation. In fact, it comes down to enlisting some help from a young aboriginal woman, Allie, who herself has been sacked from the abattoirs.

She provides Mick with a key and a crucial letter from Christine which galvanises him into action and puts the abattoirs directly in his crosshairs. After following a series of cryptic clues, copping a heavy knock to the head and a relationship breakdown (all related to his investigation, mind you) things move into high gear in the town of Glen Innes of all places.

The Carnival Is Over is an intriguing story of greed and corruption on a small-town scale. Woodland manages to capture the mood and prejudices of the 1970s very well, the sexism and misogyny, the out and out racism and the disrespect for authority are all key parts of the story. Another interesting side story running through is the restlessness of the town’s youth, their desire to get out of the place and the havoc they’re capable of raising just out of sheer boredom.

I was very pleased to return to NSW’s New England region and the town of Moorabool, more so to discover the development of the main characters from the first book have given them even greater depth. The fast-moving action, quirky humour and solid crime investigation makes it a series that all crime readers should be looking out for.