So many of us in Australia dream of owning a weekend getaway in the country. A place to simply sit amongst verdant green foliage and sprawling lazy lawns, amidst sublimely welcoming landscapes, and simply exist in endless reveries about how wonderful life truly is and how good we have it. 

In reality, only a small minority of the very privileged in Australia own such properties. In a country where only some 67 percent of people own their own primary dwelling, an additional holiday home, no matter how alluring, is just not financially viable for most of us.

In stellar Australian author, Kate Mildenhall’s, latest superb thriller/crime novel, The Hiding Place, we see that the utopian dream of a country escape can quickly and irretrievably descend into a Machiavellian nightmare.

An upper white middle class (and they feel very good about that, and even somewhat smug about it) set of couples from the big smoke have pooled their money and bought the property, Willow Creek, in the Victorian countryside, where they plan to escape to maybe once a month, along with their young children, and literally live (a piece of) the Great Australian Dream. “It’s a nice piece of land – four hectares with river frontage – a big open space down near the river, cleared for the original mining town”. Wendy, who runs the local store, reflects to herself, “As long as they (the newcomers) don’t set the mountain on fire or drown in the river or end up getting themselves killed down there any which way, well, good luck to them”.

The families who are going to invade the area for their time at Willow Creek include Lou and Marnie, and their children, sixteen year old Stella, and Benji, eleven.

Marnie is running as an independant  in the upcoming election, and image is paramount. “And so the weekend away has been approved (by Marnie’s campaign manager, Ginny); an agenda to switch off and rest but also, importantly, to appear to switch off and rest on this magnificent property in a way that might be advantageous to Marnie’s image”.

For Lou, “Willow Creek is the dream. A place for connection and rejuvenation ….”

Josie and Tom (who don’t have children of their own, although Tom has a son, Ajax, from a previous relationship, who he doesn’t see often) are our next couple. Josie works as a scientist with plants, and it  looks like she has had a lucrative job offer, thus their ability to fork out monetarily for their property share.

Ness (Lou’s sister) is a trifle tender after separating from her ex-husband, Mike. Ness has also put in financially for the property and has joined her friends for the weekend, along with her small children, Winter and Kai. “This is exactly what she needs. Forest and campfire and river and her friends, her sister, her mum. She could do without the pity looks, the hands on her upper arms, the questions (how are you really?) but she’ll deal”.

Ness is a part of GreenDreem.com (a company similar to Nutrimetics, in terms of all the levels involved, for example Silver, Platinum). Ness and Lou’s elderly mother, Avril, is also on the weekend away, and has contributed money to the property.

There is also the couple, Flick and Phil, and their children.

Without giving away all of the plot and specifically revealing everything that transpires over the weekend (think partial echoes of the William Golding novel, Lord of the Flies), I can say that there is a dead body (is it one of the city friends or an unfortunate local?), someone sleeping with someone who is not their spouse, and a crop of poisonous mushrooms. There is also someone walking around with a gun and a secret pact (or is it?) that the friends make together.

Jacob, the elderly neighbour, proves to be a thorn in the side of ‘the gang’ as he disputes the placing of the boundary fence. Further troubling for the friends is the fact that they have squatters down by the creek, on the friends’ property, who won’t leave. Dave and Libby and their adult son (the squatters) have a strong, sad tie to the place. Their young daughter went missing there years earlier. Do they think she will come wandering out of the bush? Is that why they have dug in their heels and won’t budge from their camping spot (despite being there illegally)?

Flick feels that the friends themselves have earned “The good life, because they were good people and that’s what they deserved. They’d worked hard, they’d done what they were supposed to. They donate to the right causes, put their hands up for the school working bees and the sports club fundraisers or to turn a sausage down at Bunnings every now and then for a good cause”. 

When the children and their parents discuss who really owns the land, the children prove to be more insightful than the parents (who don’t want to think about Aboriginal land ownership from the past and how it was taken without being “ceded”). Little Winnie exclaims to them all that “White people came and stole this land off Aboriginal people and never gave it back and we still live on it”. ” ‘ So should we give it back?’ Benji asks, and Josie can see from his face that he’s not taking the piss. Josie raises her eyebrows, ‘Some people say that. But it’s not that simple.’ She hears the words and is disappointed in her own lack of spine…..Winter crosses her arms. ‘Just because something seems hard doesn’t mean we shouldn’t try it ‘ “.

There are so many layers peeled back in this novel, to reveal the vagaries, nuances and sometimes hypocrises of white middle class Australia. The adults in the story are not only well off and privileged. They are entitled (an ugly trait). It is not an exaggeration to say that none of the adults are really very likeable. But that makes them more interesting as characters, right?

Kate has written a novel that overflows with intelligence, wisdom and razor-sharp insights into people, their strengths and weakness, and what essentially makes them tick. Things get pretty dark in the book, but it is written so well that I found myself turning the pages faster and faster the further I got into it.

Bravo Kate! This was a five star read for me. I loved it.