It’s been a while since I lost a weekend to a debut novel, and thanks to talented songwriter turned fiction author Holly Throsby, I spent the weekend getting to know the good folk of Goodwood and being puzzled alongside them by the mysterious disappearance of two of them.

Set in 1992, the story is told by 17-year-old Jean Brown. She is shocked, together with the rest of the town, when the cool girl, Rosie White, disappears. Shortly afterwards Goodwood’s genial butcher, who no-one ever said a bad word about, vanishes while on a Sunday morning fishing trip.

The richness of the descriptions of small-town Australia are not limited to the landscape, as the characters are fully realised and as quirky and eccentric as one may expect but without a stereotype in sight.

I was reminded a little of the cast of Rosalie Ham’s The Dressmaker, but without the darker Gothic overtones. All is not as it may first appear because, through the naive yet keenly observant eyes of Jean, the layers of the town are peeled back to reveal its secrets.

There is so much to enjoy about this book; my tip is that it will become a firm favourite with book clubs.

Reviewed by Maryanne Vagg