The Coroner’s Conscience by Ian Callinan

Publisher's Synopsis

Louise Genson is a beautiful merchant banker. She has everything to live for. But her dead body is found in her beloved Le Mans Jaguar at the bottom of Sydney Harbour. The coroner begins what promises to be a sensational enquiry.

In her brief career Louise has moved from seductive TV show hostess to aggressive international banker handling takeover bids in New York. She is exotically attractive but elusive and reserved. Who has murdered her? Is it her alcoholic ex-husband, a second hand car salesman who is still dependent on her? Or her sculptor-father who is filled with anger at his failure as an artist and as old-fashioned parent? Or perhaps her rich colleague and ex-lover who is obsessed with Louise? Or could it be Louise's bishop-confessor who loves prestige and the limelight and who guards a shameful secret?

This is the conundrum faced by a dutiful coroner who is himself torn between conscience and his own guilty infatuation with an attractive TV journalist. And all of the characters come to taste the bitter fruits of failure and rejection.

Review: The Coroner’s Conscience by Ian Callinan

The death of Louise Genson, a young and beautiful seemingly happy and successful woman, proves to bring together a wide range of people, called as witnesses at the coronial inquest. While the main focus of the story is to follow the proceedings of the inquest, it's the characters, their backgrounds and their relationships with Louise that take over.

The life of Louise Genson reveals a serious, hard to read young girl who was doted on by her father and who, as she grew older, yearned for something more for her life. She wanted to escape suburban Sydney, to travel, but settled for a public servant's job before moving into the more glamorous television job and then finally as an extremely successful merchant banker. Somehow all of this would lead to her death in her beloved Le Mans Jaguar.

Presiding over the inquest is Sidney Marcus, a good honest man, yet he is burdened with personal problems of his own threatening to distract him from his duties as coroner. These problems are extensively revealed to us during the course of the inquest, complicating a case that already gives signs that the verdict will not be an easy one to reach. In fact, it's a verdict that will very likely destroy one or more lives and it's this type of dilemma that is foremost on the coroner's conscience.

As each witness is called we move back in time and trace their lives from their early days, right up until they cross paths with Louise. While Callinan paints an exhaustively elaborate picture of each character, the depth at which he examines each person tends to disrupt the flow of the case with a lot of the detail largely irrelevant, both to the story and to the case. It's this disjointedness that proves to be the biggest distraction to the story.

Right from the outset this is a study of characters as we are introduced to each of the main players and given a small dose of their background. Gradually, their involvement in the life of Louise Genson is explained, as are the possibilities that they could somehow been involved in her death.

Rich in detailed character analysis which dominates the story, it is worthwhile taking a quick look at those who are involved in the case to get a rough idea of how they are related to Louise.

There's Richard Genson, her father, a failed sculptor who simply adored his daughter but was very dissatisfied with the way she lived her life. An over-protective man, could he have allowed his anger to be directed at his daughter?

Lancelot Rupe is Louise's ex-husband and is a used-car salesman with no business acumen and battles with alcoholism. Surely he is wracked with jealousy over the business success of his ex-wife.

The one night stand in New York that Louise allowed to take place with business colleague Giles Sparkly results in an infatuation that would haunt her for years to come with unwanted phone calls and pleas that heir relationship not be over. Perhaps Louise spurned him once too often.

The wildcard of the deck is Bishop Henry Eppsville. One wonders what his connection with this beautiful young woman could possibly be and why it has been necessary that he be called as a witness at the inquest.

There is no doubting Callinan's flair for instilling his characters with tremendous spirit and a richness that brings them fully to life, but much of this is done at the expense of allowing the story to flow in a measured and orderly fashion. At times it becomes difficult to recall just what the purpose of a particular piece of testimony might have been, so long is the background story into which we have segued.

It's interesting to note that the author, Ian Callinan was appointed as a Justice of the High Court of Australia in 1998, having been admitted to the bar in 1965. Consequently, when it comes to legal procedure, you can be assured that he writes with the background of unlimited experience and this certainly shows as Sidney Marcus conducts his inquest.

The Coroner's Conscience is a mesmerising legal mystery that goes to great lengths in order to humanise a tragic death. It's the type of book that suits a reader who likes to immerse themselves in the very souls of a story's characters.