999 Challenge - November

The Neighbour by Lisa Gardner (Crime)
Sandra a teacher and Jason a reporter are a married couple with a three year old daughter who they are totally devoted to. They appear to be living the perfect life and then one night Sandra disappears without a trace. DD Warren is a career police officer who thinks Jason has something to do with the disappearence. Then there are the other suspects, a neighbour from a couple of doors down who is a registered sex offender and a student of whom Sandra has taken a special interest in.
The book is layered in secrets and deceptions and covers topics of sex offenders, child exploitation and internet crimes. I really enjoyed this book and will reading other titles by this author.
Diamonds and Dust by Sheryl McCorry (Biography)
I found a review of this book in Good Reading and thought it looked interesting. Sheryl grew up in the outback. At eighteen she married a man she hardly knew and at the wedding she locked eyes with a man across the crowded room. The man was Bob McCorry a drover and buffalo hunter who was twice her age. Sheryl marriage lasted only a couple of months and she then began an affair with Bob McCorry a union that would last a lifetime and take them into some of the harshed places in the Kimberleys. She learned to run rogue bulls, muster cattle and work within a team of men only stockmen. Sheryl and McCorry married and Sheryl became the first women to run a two million cattle station in one of the toughest terrians in Australia. Her life was not without tragedy losing her son at five years of age in an accident.
It is a story of hardship, love and joy and shows the strength this woman had and still has as she now lives between Mount Barker and Broome.
Access Road by Maurice Gee (Word of Mouth)
The story explores the world of seventy eight year old Rowan Pinker and her elderly brothers Roly and Lionel as they deal with old age, ill health and events in Lionel's past. After fifty years away Lionel and Roly return to the crumberling family home on Access Road. Rowan recalls the past, of Roly's disappearence from home at eighteen unable to cope with the pressure of an ambitious mother and Lionel who suffered from black moods and fits of violence who makes a career as a dentist which hold secrets of there own. Rowan escaped by marrying Dickie Pinker and moved to the better side of town. Rowan's brothers think that she should not delve into the past and to leave well enough alone. Rowan can not let go and her discoveries lead to a shocking conclusion.
The author's focuses are on family lives and behaviours that are often left stripped bare. I really enjoy this New Zealand author's books, his books are hard to put down. He is a great storyteller.