| Publisher | World Editions |
|---|---|
| Date Published | 20 January 2022 |
| ISBN-10 | 1912987252 |
| ISBN-13 | 978-1912987252 |
| Format | paperback |
| Pages | 288 |
| Price | £ 12.99 |
Tally Stick
by
A family recently arrived in New Zealand disappears. Thirty years later the remains of one of them is found, but the discovery just raises more questions.
Review
John and Julia Chamberlain arrive in New Zealand with their four children in April 1978, where John is to take up a job. They are exploring the country by car a few days later when both car and family go missing.
Extensive searches are made but no trace is ever found until 2010, when the remains of the oldest child, Maurice, are discovered on a remote seashore. The discovery is puzzling. Maurice’s bones at death show that he lived for nearly four years after the date the family was lost. With his bones was a tally stick, the significance of which is entirely unclear and it is not known how Maurice survived between his disappearance and death.
The book interleaves the tale of the surviving family members with that of Suzanne, Julia’s sister, who is obsessed with the disappearance. Suzanne makes a total of four visits to New Zealand, hiking in the dense woodland in the area the family are thought to have been lost, showing photos to anyone she meets in the thinly populated region.
In fact, the catastrophe which initiated the mystery left only three members of the family alive, Maurice (14), Katherine (12) and Tommy (7), with two of them badly injured. Their condition was such that they were unlikely to have survived more than a few days, were it not for a fortuitous meeting with a local resident.
The rescue is not, however, entirely the good fortune it might have seemed …
Tally Stick is a gripping story that unfolds in a masterful fashion, with crucial developments left until the last few pages. The interior monologues of the featured characters are entirely credible, including that of the children, something that is not always easy to pull off. The couple into whose hands the children fall come across as self-interested but not wholly bad. This is an intensely atmospheric, balanced, easily believable portrait.
Extensive searches are made but no trace is ever found until 2010, when the remains of the oldest child, Maurice, are discovered on a remote seashore. The discovery is puzzling. Maurice’s bones at death show that he lived for nearly four years after the date the family was lost. With his bones was a tally stick, the significance of which is entirely unclear and it is not known how Maurice survived between his disappearance and death.
The book interleaves the tale of the surviving family members with that of Suzanne, Julia’s sister, who is obsessed with the disappearance. Suzanne makes a total of four visits to New Zealand, hiking in the dense woodland in the area the family are thought to have been lost, showing photos to anyone she meets in the thinly populated region.
In fact, the catastrophe which initiated the mystery left only three members of the family alive, Maurice (14), Katherine (12) and Tommy (7), with two of them badly injured. Their condition was such that they were unlikely to have survived more than a few days, were it not for a fortuitous meeting with a local resident.
The rescue is not, however, entirely the good fortune it might have seemed …
Tally Stick is a gripping story that unfolds in a masterful fashion, with crucial developments left until the last few pages. The interior monologues of the featured characters are entirely credible, including that of the children, something that is not always easy to pull off. The couple into whose hands the children fall come across as self-interested but not wholly bad. This is an intensely atmospheric, balanced, easily believable portrait.
Reviewed 12 November 2022 by Chris Roberts
