Death at Booroomba
Reviewed By Janet Mawdesley August 4, 2025
Author A.L. Booth
Distributor: Ventura Press
ISBN: 978-1-7638320-0-8
Publisher: Ventura Press
Release Date: 29 July 2025
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AL Booth has captured the very essence of small-town Australia post World War1 in this enthralling murder mystery Death at Booroomba set in the town of Warrawolong four years after the ending of the War.
Jack O’Rourke has finally returned home, weary of body mind and soul, recovering from his injuries and learning to cope with the mental and emotional aftermath of fighting on the front line. He learns he has inherited the property of Booroomba, owned by Samuel Lomond, a man he rescued from drowning in Sydney Harbour, just days before he embarked to fight in France.
Unfortunately, Lomond had been murdered and when Jack arrives in town at the request of the solicitor Will Grimble, to accept his inheritance, the murder has not been solved; Jack is considered as the man who most likely was responsible for Lomond’s death.
From his first encounter with the locals, he realizes this is anything but a friendly town, it is a town with very strong undercurrents, secrets that go back many years and as with all small towns, everyone knows your business, or considers they do.
Befriended by retired town Doctor, Dr Duncan MacDonald and his wife, Jack begins to put the pieces of the recent past together, making the decision, that as the local Policeman appears to be lazy and incompetent, he would make his own enquiries to honor the kindly man he considered his friend.
This sets off a chain of incidents that see jack arrested. The arrest is reported in the local paper by Tess Allingham, the local journalist, which helps give him a far better understanding of how the small town works and how well it can hide its secrets.
AL Booth has carefully crafted characters who rise off the pages as people, damaged, scared, careless, manipulative and kindly along with a plot line that hides within plain sight the murderer, a person disguised by events decades old but prepared to go to any lengths to hide a brutal and bloody past.
Death at Booroomba is highly recommended for anyone who enjoys a well-constructed murder mystery set firmly in the history of Australia.