Internationally acclaimed and best-selling Australian writer Charlotte McConaghy returns with Wild Dark Shore, perhaps her darkest novel yet. On a wild and remote research island between Australia and Antartica, a young woman washes ashore. The island’s population is a single family: grieving widower Dominic Salt and his three children. They nurse the woman back to health.Â
Giving any other plot detail would spoil the terrific surprises and twists and McConaghy delivers with impeccable pacing. Short chapters flick between different points of view, shifting from third to first person, with secret motivations and histories slowly revealed to the reader. It’s a deeply compelling mystery that is hard to put down.
It is also deeper than a pulpy mystery novel. McConaghy’s choice of location, perfect for a locked-room mystery in the style of Agatha Christie, is based on a real, isolated research station. It is a ‘seed bank’, property of the United Nations, housing thousands of seeds. The bank acts as an insurance policy against plant extinction.
The changing tides of McConaghy’s island and the terrific Shakespearean storm that opens the novel, make Wild Dark Shore a fantastic example of climate fiction. Effortlessly basing the novel in science, neither hysterical nor didactic, McConaghy expertly explores consequences of humanity’s effect on the environment. The result is a tense atmosphere of dread that only heightens the mysteries of the human characters.
It is clear McConaghy is reaching for literary acclaim here. She will receive it and deserves it, but the prose comes close to indulgent in its constant lyricism. Even though the novel switches between diverse points of view, the narrative voice never alters. Even the youngest child is capable of a stream of beautifully articulated poetic thought, filled with thematic relevant allegory and desolate imagery.
Read: Book review: Signs of Damage, Diana Reid
Regardless, Wild Dark Shore is a crowd-pleasing triumph. A true mystery, with a surprising and bold ending, that is satisfying and symbolically rich.
Wild Dark Shore, Charlotte McConaghy
Publisher: Penguin Random House
ISBN: 9781761620003
Pages: 320pp
RRP: $34.99
Publication date: 4 March 2025
