Debut drama Sheerwater
by 4th Estate The opening scene of this gripping domestic suspense thriller is heartstopping. Mum Ava is driving with her two young sons, Max and Teddy, and their dog, along Victoria’s Great Ocean Road when they literally see “a bolt from the blue”. It streaks across the sky ahead and they realise a plane has crashed. Should she stop? There’s something desperate and urgent about Ava. She really doesn’t want to disrupt her family road trip and we sense an electric atmosphere of fear driving her heightened state, and yet she feels compelled to do something. The people inside the plane need her help, there is no one else around and she can’t just drive on by.
So, even though she’s clearly conflicted, Ava pulls up at a safe distance, instructs her boys to stay put and rushes to the crumpled carcass of the Cessna. As she struggles to release those trapped, a man runs towards her to help and together they try to save lives, with mixed success. Finally, the emergency services arrive and Ava heads back to her car, knowing her sons will now be anxious. But the vehicle is empty; her boys are gone.
Author Leah Swann based this dramatic opening on a real life situation. “I saw a woman running to help at an accident and leaving her children in the car… I wrote the book to find out what [could have] happened,” she says. The book follows the three days from the moment Max and Teddy go missing to the moment Ava discovers the truth. Early on we discover Ava is fleeing her husband to start a new life in beachside Sheerwater, an area where others are also seeking refuge. Her sons love their dad, but something has set this family spiralling out of control.
As the hours tick by, the suspense builds to a pounding crescendo and the story that unfolds is painfully topical. “You keep turning the pages when there’s something to care about, like the missing children,” says Swann. “Suspense is also generated by pace, and in Sheerwater readers hurtle through events alongside the characters. Setting is a third element – the beautiful but dangerous ‘shipwreck coast’ of the Great Ocean Road adds to a feeling of disquiet.”
The shocking denouement includes a terrifying car chase, and certainly Sheerwater has TV adaptation written all over it. But this domestic drama stays with you, and is worth a second reading, when you’ll spot the haunting clues that provide the framework for the plot.