Highway 13

One of my favourite kinds of novel (is it a novel?) consists of short story collections where the stories are linked -- by a single character, like Elizabeth Strout's Olive Kitteridge, or by a theme or an historical event, as is the case here. The twelve stories in Highway 13 revolve around a series of murders in the Australian bush, which bear striking parallels to the so-called Backpacker Murders executed by Ivan Milat. In Highway 13, the murderer is Paul Biga, of Polish extraction (Milat's father was Croatian), but his crimes are very similar -- hitchhikers and tourists picked up by the side of the road, taken into the forest and brutally murdered. I should add that neither the murderer or his crimes ever appear directly in any of the stories, but their off stage presence looms ever more powerfully because of it.

Highway 13 reminds us that the effects of crimes like these ripples out far beyond the victims themselves. We meet a 'tourist,' ghoulishly obsessed with the murders; true crime podcasters; someone who knew Biga's sister-in-law; the brother of a missing woman; one of Biga's neighbours; someone who managed to get away; a police officer who worked on the case. The stories swoop across the years, before and after the crimes were committed, and across continents.

I absolutely loved this book. Each story is beautifully written, shining a different light on something very dark: moving, clever and compassionate. Superb.