Wheelchair

Manny’s kids are a diverse and unique group. Rescued from the streets by philanthropist Harold Mankiewicz and given safe places to live while having their education funded and places for them to work and succeed in life, the group have all followed different walks in life, work hard, strive to help others, and have stayed a close knit group. Perhaps the most distinctive individual to emerge from Manny’s philanthropy is thirty-nine-year-old Simon Dyson. Suffering from “compulsive behaviour,” OCD, and PTSD with a “need for punishment” due to his early childhood with his father and what he had to do on the streets to survive, Simon is an “associate professor of history,” “a man with a heart as big as the State of Queensland, but with enough armour around it to circumnavigate the globe twice over,” “the fear of being touched, the fear of intimacy,” and “one of the most complex human beings on the face of the planet.” His greatest solace is to occupy his mind making “scale models for serious model railway enthusiasts.”

At the explosive start of Garrick Jones’s latest novel, WHEELCHAIR—ANTARCTICA: SNOW AND ICE (2020), the car Simon is driving is violently rear-ended, flipping the car over. Severely injured, Simon is cut loose from his seat belt by twenty-six-year-old Constable Obadiah Sexton only to have the vehicle which causes the accident turn around and run over the Constable as well as a woman who stops to render aid. Only with incredible, adrenaline-fueled, “hysterical strength,” is Simon able to drag the officer to the side of the road before the car catches on fire, saving his life. Clearly no random accident, events have been put into place which bring together a number of Simon’s mates to not only aid their friend, but to try to get to the root of the mystery for the attack.

WHEELCHAIR is a cunningly crafted piece of fiction. It is the author’s first thriller with a modern as opposed to historical setting. The novel contains an intriguing narrative technique in which Jones has Simon narrate the chapters which are devoted to or mainly coming from his perspective. Other chapters have a third person narrator. This form of narration causes no confusion and only benefits the reader and the story and is seamlessly done.

As with his other works, Jones displays obvious pride in his homeland of Australia, sprinkling the text with references to Australian culture and language. Also adding texture to the book are quotations from books and movies which are likely to delight fans of the works. Just as there are moments of darkness which match well the complexity of the characters and the novel’s events, there are also some germane scenes of rather explicit sex, realistic dialogue and smidgins of sometimes racy humor.

Early in the novel Simon admits it takes time before he can open up with people he doesn’t know and so it is with WHEELCHAIR. Events slowly peel back new revelations, especially since Simon can remember very little of the accident and his rescue of Obadiah Sexton (quickly dubbed Obi in the story). Simon’s friends, crucially aware of his long-time fragile psychological condition which can lead to breakdowns and his need to physically heal from debilitating injuries, are cautious to prod Simon’s awareness of events so they all can move forward to confront what is happening and seemingly closing in upon them. Simon is equally eager and yet hesitant to face what has taken place and what might be coming about as his life is turned upside down. Even the book’s title remains a bit of a mystery for readers to discover.

Finding the truth becomes all the more essential when it becomes known there was a parcel in the trunk of the car Simon was driving which someone is willing to kill to find and Simon’s life clearly continues to remain in danger.

Supplementing the mystery plot of WHEELCHAIR is the growing relationship between Simon and Obi. Simon is delighted to discover Obadiah, who has serious injuries which will take a long time to heal and is provided for by Harold Mankiewicz for having saved Simon’s life, may be as complex of an individual as himself. Obi’s background as well as his personal and professional life is quite exceptional.

The depth of duplicity and danger surrounding Simon, Obi, and the inner circle of friends heightens with the passage of time. Every question answered brings new questions and not everyone is who they appear to be. The desperate need for all parties, known and unknown, to discover what was in the car trunk which has gone missing and to recover it intensifies as deaths begin to occur and people start to go missing.

Perhaps to a greater extent than in his previous work, WHEELCHAIR contains more emotion and romance, but the ardor and intensity of feelings among the characters in the novel not only adds depth and anxiety to some of the characters causing a considerable degree of soul searching, but remains true to the personalities of the characters—many of whom most readers are not likely to consider mundane.

As events begin to move at an increasingly rapid pace to the novel’s apogee, readers will find themselves increasingly mesmerized. Jones, ever stressing the humanity of his characters, has those in WHEELCHAIR evolve at a natural pace without any discordant moments and unlike some mysteries which have readers either confused or confounded, Jones keeps his readers clear and in hand as well as reasonably acquainted with details which have transpired throughout the novel. The climax of the novel exposes a conspiracy beyond anyone’s initial thinking and brings a multitude of lives to a fitting end (some of which may be atypical but are psychologically sound and realistic). Thus, WHEELCHAIR is yet further evidence of Jones’s mastery of intrigue and depiction of human nature and is fascinating reading cover to cover.