A bushfire rages in the Victorian countryside. Sheltered under sodden woollen blankets is the protagonist, Alison. After the fire has burnt itself out, she emerges to assess the damage around her house. To her astonishment, there’s a strange car in her driveway. More alarmingly, there’s a woman in the driver’s seat who seems to have died before she could find shelter. Alison finds her own name and address in the woman’s possession … but she has no idea who this person is, or why they would have her details.

The woman is identified as Simone Arnold, from Cairns. She has similar features to Alison and, coincidentally, Alison had returned to Victoria from a stint in Cairns. Still, Alison had no idea who she was. Simone’s parents meet Alison and state that Simone was killed by her partner, Michael. This means nothing to Alison until they show her his photo. She recognises the man as her ex, who she knew as Gil. She was abused and under his coercive control while she lived in Cairns.

Now she understands why Simone’s parents think she was killed, rather than died in the fire. But if this man, identified as Michael Gilbert Watson, is in the area, then Alison might also be in danger. She believes she’s being stalked, but the police seem uninterested in helping her, so Alison decides to investigate the situation herself.

Radiant Heat has female agency and male dominance at its foundation. It appears written for an American audience, but has a discordant mix of decimal distance and Imperial temperatures. (One or the other, please, but not both.) The denouement leaves some narrative threads unresolved, as if a sequel might be a possibility.

Reviewed by Bob Moore

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ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Sarah-Jane Collins is a writer, editor, and journalist from Meanjin (Brisbane), Australia, who moved to New York by way of Gadigal land (Sydney) and Narrm (Melbourne). Her work has appeared in the Age, the Sydney Morning Herald,Meanjin, Overland, and others.

She has an MFA in fiction from Columbia University. Her fiction has won the Overland Fair Australia Prize and been short-listed for other awards. Although New York is home now, she misses the beaches of Australia, but not the spiders.