description: Tasmanian schoolteacher Kate Byrne is having an affair with the father of her most gifted fourth grader, Lucien. Her lover's wife has just published Murder at Black Swan Point, a true-crime story about the brutal slaying of a young adulteress in a nearby town. Kate herself has become so obsessed with the murder and so convinced that the published account has it all wrong that she sets about writing her own version -- this one for children, narrated by Australian animals. Though Lucien's father brings Kate to life sexually in encounters of escalating eroticism, he cannot dull her obsession. Fixated on the crime of passion, Kate is becoming less and less aware of the present and of how her behavior may align her fate with that of the dead girl. Chloe Hooper chillingly captures this young woman's unraveling in an intense, witty, superbly crafted novel.
language: English
title: A Childs Book of True Crime
titlecomplete: A Childs Book of True Crime
genres: Crime, Audiobook, Thriller, Literary Fiction, Australia, Novels, Tasmania, Fiction, Literature, Mystery
ratings_count: 733
awards: awardedAt: 1009872000000
name: Orange Prize
category: Fiction Shortlist, awardedAt: 1009872000000
name: Betty Trask Award
publisher: Bolinda Publishing