Crow

 Crow

Reviewed By  Janet Mawdesley       August 28, 2025

 

Author  Rhonda McCoy

Distributor:      Amazon
ISBN:                 978-1-7638320-6-0
Publisher:         Ventura Press
Release Date:   August 2025  

   Website:   https://www.amazon.com.au/Crow-unexpected-death-town-unravelled

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Crow opens with a young man standing in the chill dampness of the Arthur River Cemetery people watching. His commentary is somewhat disturbing; a funeral is to be held outdoors in the bleakness that is a Tasmanian Spring.

Through the opening chapter each character is introduced, leaving behind a sense of wondering what is going on and why there are so few, but so many attending this funeral. Who is the stunning, smartly dressed woman who arrives late and why are there only five chairs set out for mourners to use?

Rhonda McCoy has in her debut novel Crow captured a very defined sense of atmosphere, broody, almost creepy, a sense of the past history of the Church hanging over the event; the funeral of Harold Crow, a man respected and admired by the local community.

His death was unexpected; a Coronial inquest is to be carried out  into the events leading up to his death in the local hospital where Dr David Boyd, a very dear and close friend of Hal’s had practiced for many years, as had his father before him.

Hal’s death sets off a train of events bringing with it hatred, mistrust, devastation and death before acceptance and renewal can begin.

Many strings are woven together to form the close-knit community of Arthur River, one that can strike down as easily as it can support as the Boyd family are forced to confront so many carefully hidden issues, the townspeople all to ready to sit in judgement as much of the Boyd’s past and present is too be lived out in the public domain.

Crow is a riveting read of tragedy, friendship, love, understanding and forgiveness created from a visit to a small town in Tasmania that simply begged to be the setting for a novel and a chance meeting with a farmer in South Australia who helped form the character of Harold ‘Hal’ Crow.

Highly recommended.

Fiction, General