The Fancies is the fifth novel by Australian author, Kim Lock. On the same day a human thigh washes up on the beach at Port Kingerton, at the southernmost tip of South Australia, Abigail Fancy, remembered by some as gangly, wild and slightly terrifying teenage girl, and now a stacked, lush, blonde-haired powerhouse, returns to the small town she emphatically left twenty-three years earlier. The next day, it seems that Lofty’s boat is missing. Some in the town concoct wildly speculative connections between these three occurrences.

Abigail, it turns out, is as prickly as ever, with good reason. Returning to Kingo, this pipsqueak, self-absorbed town with its stupid, insular politics, filled with obsessive braggarts who thought they were the centre of the universe? That had never been her plan, but after five months in prison (her second stint in two years), she’s not just broke, but deep in debt, owning only the clothes on her back.

Her dad, known as Young Dick Fancy, is, with growing reluctance, a figure of influence in the town and his main concerns just now are: that the bone washed up is causing the town’s nerves to fray as it recalls events of twenty-four years earlier; Abigail’s predicament, and how he can help; the unexplained absence of Lofty’s boat, and then Lofty; and his dad, Old Dick’s disinhibited ramblings.

Old Dick, some years into dementia, makes an unreliable narrator, and it’s quickly apparent from his comments that he has no filter, and that his inner monologue is not necessarily a silent one. He offers opinions like “‘Be careful whose money you take. They might want to collect it later. With interest. Sometimes it’s blood. Other times it’s your balls.’”

As Abigail is well aware, Port Kingerton is a place where information (gossip) rates as currency, affording prestige to the teller, and offering the frisson of excitement at the prospect of sharing it. “She had come here because she needed to get away, to start over, to be a self-governing private person, but she may as well have mounted a camera on her head, livestreaming her every move, for all privacy she actually felt. Everyone knew who she was—everyone had decided, long ago, who she was— and there was no changing that.”

About the only person who doesn’t have preconceived ideas about Abigail, or the arrogance to pass judgement is the new, attractive veterinarian, who comes to check on a naughty mare about to foal in autumn, and who is also the target of attacking goose called Kitten.

In a tale populated by vibrant, zany, larger-than-life characters, with plenty of laugh-out-loud lines, and a generous sprinkling of expletives, old rivalries re-emerge, loyalties are tested and long-held secrets are revealed. And some, carrying two decades of guilt, try to make amends. Lock perfectly conveys her setting: the atmosphere and mindset, the claustrophobia, and the jealousies that are endemic in a small Australian coastal town. Funny, moving and thought-provoking, Lock’s latest does not disappoint.
This unbiased review is from an uncorrected proof copy provided by NetGalley and Harlequin Australia.