Rum Justice by Jolien Harmsen
It would be so easy to write a sniffy review of this book. It has a crime that becomes the focus for the last section of the book with a court room denouement. That’s why it’s in the page turner section. However, the over-writing and various tangents from this plot make it anything but a page-turner. Yet the circumstances why I read this book and its insight into a society of which I was ignorant meant that it held my interest throughout even if I had to skim read certain sections.
My friends, Chris and Hilary, recently holidayed in St Lucia and the setting for this story, St. Cecilia, is a fictionalised version of this Caribbean island. The story is narrated by Claire, an Australian writer and journalist, raised in Europe, who has made her home on St Cecilia. Again, based on Chris and Hilary’s account of meeting Rum Justice’s writer, it seems that Claire is a lightly fictionalised version of Jolien Harmsen.
When a local fisherman discovers the body of Riley Jackson, a well-liked odd job man who had recently been working for a wealthy American couple, Hazel and Michael Cunningham, yachting in the Caribbean, Claire is persuaded by his distraught family to use her journalistic skills to investigate what happened. That is, of course, an indictment on the effectiveness of the local police but more of that in a moment. Claire follows the most obvious line of enquiry, the Cunninghams. After all the wife had been acting in a drunken, erratic manner prior to the discovery of the body, brandishing a handgun and talking about wanting to shoot up something. In addition, there are rumours that she and Riley had been sexually involved. The police certainly believe in the guilt of the Americans but their stretched resources and less than meticulous procedures leave many unanswered questions. Forensic evidence is lacking, timelines are confused and all that seems to tie the Americans to the crime is the wife’s behaviour and a possible motivation for the husband based on a sexual jealousy. Nevertheless, the case goes to court as the local politics demand some attempt to solve another senseless death.
The murder mystery is only part of the interest in this baggy, Boris trolley (veers all over the place) novel. The most interesting parts were some of the descriptions of the everyday life of the island’s inhabitants in what is superficially an island paradise but with a fatal underlying culture of violence. The writer also examines the antipathy felt towards wealthy American tourists – it’s a classic compromise where their cash is needed but not the cultural arrogance. What is most interesting, though, is that Harmsen gives the American perspective a voice; in this case a journalist, part of the press pack who descend on the island for the trial. The discussion between the journalist and Claire may be contrived and typical of this novice writer’s structural clumsiness but, nonetheless, provides a balanced view of the relationship between the USA and the island.
I’ve written more than I intended about this novel because I can’t really recommend it. The thing is, though, Chris and Hilary’s personal acquaintance with the island and the writer provided ample strands of conversation when we discussed this at our book group. Therefore, I think you should only read this if you know Chris and Hilary or have visited St. Lucia.