Australia in 2034 has evolved into a radical enviro-state. Beef production is limited; polluting industries closed down; renewables have replaced fossil fuels and the country is in perpetual drought. But in Queensland they have introduced DIY capital punishment.
The main character is the Court-appointed psychologist who supports the family of a murder victim in their ‘journey’ towards therapeutic vengeance. We learn what happened to the victim, the surviving family and their slightly off-centre version of Australia. The characters’ back stories and the crime in question are elicited in a series of interviews which form part of the psychologist’s job. Further background is contained in TV and radio programs which she consumes as she
goes about her life.
As the psychologist does her work making sure the family are up to the impending task, secrets about the past and other complexities are revealed so that the outcome is far from certain. The murderer to be executed is suitably evil and there is no question as to his guilt – if anyone deserves to be executed this guy does and the moral problems of an eye for eye are set up to be examined.
I enjoyed the glimpses of a future greener and less gentle country. Although I was not persuaded by the logic of the story there is more than a touch of Kazuo Ishiguro, in the way an ostensibly well-intentioned bureaucracy presides over a process that is going to culminate in the victim’s family torturing the convicted murderer to death using knives and blunt instruments.
What I Would Do To You will be for you if you are looking for a good read out of left field with a psychological forensic spin.
Reviewed by Grant Hansen
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Georgia Harper is a psychologist who has worked with both serious violent offenders and victim-survivors of crime. Her career spans correctional, forensic mental health, mental health and rural psychology roles. She advises on LGBTIQ+ workforce matters and, in keeping with her passion for animal welfare, was the Senior Inspector Prosecutions for RSPCA Queensland. Born in Brisbane, Georgia currently lives and works on the beautiful Darling Downs, where she enjoys writing in her paddock under the supervision of her shire horse.
What I Would Do to You is her first novel.
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