4.5★s
The Running Club is the second novel by Australian journalist and author, Ali Lowe. Esperance, the jewel at the tip of the peninsula at Sydney’s north, where “you can’t be ugly living in this town. It’s as if aesthetics are taken into account when you’re signing over your millions on a property contract”, there’s a running club. Four couples participate, some with more dedication that others. They use a purpose-built running track just off the Esperance Reserve, and many of them run five days a week at 7pm.

Several members originally hail from Shivers Beach, a forty-minute drive north, described as ”poverty clad and unkempt”, these four having managed to drag themselves out of there by “marrying up”. Some in the group are very much focussed on wealth and image; and some seem intent on sowing discord. But in early September, one of their number is found in the reserve, just near the track, quite dead.

Little more can be said without spoilers. The story is told from four different perspectives and over two time periods, and the reader may wonder at the reliability and honesty of the narrators. Lowe’s cleverly constructed plot, which doesn’t reveal the identity of the victim until halfway through, will keep the reader guessing as each little twist and wrinkle, each lie and secret, shows that there are several candidates both for the victim and the killer.

Lowe evokes her setting and era with consummate ease. Her characters are the sort of people we all encounter in our daily lives, facing challenges and dilemmas both topical and realistic: infidelity, unwise investment, ageing partners, difficult teens; as well some that only apply to certain societal strata, like trying to keep up with snobbish friends.

In a plot where no one is quite who they first seem to be, Lowe manages to include: a flasher, a severe peanut allergy, charity shop donations, a forgotten bitcoin password and embezzlement from a women’s refuge charity. Excellent contemporary Aussie crime drama.
This unbiased review is from an uncorrected proof copy provided by NetGalley and Hodder & Stoughton.