2.5★
“The grass felt damp against my pants, but I didn’t care. I tried to suck that crisp mountain air into my hyperventilating lungs while Michael’s words echoed in my mind: ‘The night terrors are just the start of it. There’s also the lethargy, the anxiety attacks, the paranoia and the fits of aggression.’

Was he right? Was all of this just a symptom of PTSD?”

The narrator is Marlowe Robertson, daughter of the local police officer in Kiama, a small coastal town on the NSW, Australia, South Coast, famous for its tidal blowhole. It makes a good setting for a mystery, located as it is with a backdrop of hills where Marlowe is experiencing the mountain air.

“The fog moved quickly up there on the peak. One second you’d be shrouded; the next it was gone.”

That’s exactly the sort of creepy atmosphere were every snapping twig or rustling leaf is likely to cause a spike of adrenaline (or heart attack!) if you’re on your own. She’s not alone up there, but she and her friend mostly can’t see each other and are trying to be quiet so they aren’t detected, so any sound is scary.

Marlowe found her best friend, Lily Williams, dead in the showground stables at the summer carnival. Before she reported it, she took some photos of the scene because she’s been covering the carnival for a possible news article. Hardhearted? You’d think so. But she’s the daughter of a country copper.

“ I’d seen bodies before, though never in real life. My dad had a nasty habit of leaving open copies of the ‘Police Journal’ lying around the house. On the kitchen counter, the dining room table or next to the toilet. As a child, I was never quite sure when or where I’d inadvertently catch my next glimpse of a corpse. I grew desensitised to the bodies and eventually became fascinated by the articles behind the pictures. It was one of the main reasons I aspired to be a crime reporter. One person’s early childhood trauma is another’s career catalyst.”

The opening quotation is by psychiatrist Michael Williams who happens to be Lily’s father as well as a close friend of Marlowe’s father.

The mystery starts off well and I was enjoying the twists and turns, But somewhere along the line, the twisting turned off course and made some inexcusable (to me) plotting errors that led to a completely implausible (again, to me) Epilogue.

I was looking forward to this. I’d heard the author interviewed, and she said her father is still a Kiama police officer. While this is not autobiographical, her family did receive death threats during the course of his duty in a bigger town, so she knows the dangers to those who investigate crime.

I’m actually not surprised her father gave his stamp of approval to using “his town” as the backdrop for the story, because I don’t think anyone is going to traipse around the hills near Kiama believing they will find evidence of strange doings. (Unless people are dumber than I think, which is possible, I guess. 😊)

West’s writing style is good - the characters, the timelines, the atmosphere - but the situations and circumstances keep changing so much that the whole thing ends up unbelievable and dissatisfying. Some good editor should rein her in a bit so she will write a believable thriller!

Thanks to NetGalley and Simon and Schuster Australia for the review copy from which I’ve quoted.

Whoa! Okay, this book starts as Marlowe getting interviewed about a true-crime book she had written. So the bulk of the story is Marlowe's book. It starts as a cover-up about a murder, but the twists and revelations... And the finale is a giant twist! An enjoyable mystery/thriller/suspense.

Underwhelming

This was billed as Twin Peaks meets The Dry - it doesn't come close to either of those (both which I love).

For me the story and the characters are just ok, I wasn't compelled to keep reading, I wasn't burning to know the who, what, why & how.

Very disappointing

I stopped reading this book at 54% as I really wasn't enjoying it at all. I found the writing flat and uninteresting, and it felt like the author had gone through afterwards to add some adjectives and adverbs in an attempt to make the writing more descriptive, but unfortunately failed.

I found the protagonist incredibly annoying and unlikeable. Her "fuck you all" knee-jerk reactions to everything made her come across like a petulant teenager, not the 22-year-old university graduate she is supposed to be, and I found this extreme reaction to just about everything to be very wearing. The only situation she didn't seem to have a strong reaction to was finding the dead body of her best friend. It felt wrong at the time, but seeing how she reacted to everything else later in the story, it just felt totally wrong. If the author meant her character to have a 'normal" reaction to finding her best friend's body in a pool of blood, she hasn't succeeded in portraying that very well.

This book is not a cross between Twin Peaks and The Dry, and if I were David Lynch or Jane Harper I'd be extremely offended at this comparison. Catch us the Foxes is more like a cross between Home and Away and I Know What You Did Last Summer. The story was ludicrous, full of incongruities and bad acting, and Nicola West should be ashamed of herself for portraying Kiama in such a way. She should have used a fictitious name.

Thank you for the opportunity to read this book, but it just wasn't for me. Young people may like it, but I'm in my late 40s and have very little tolerance for the type of behaviour and attitude exhibited by the main character, or the poor quality of the writing.

Loved this book! Was weary to begin as it started sounded weird but I kept reading and was very pleased, although that’s not the correct word to describe the book.

I really liked how this book just kept on twisting: you think you have a handle on things, but then nope! The only downside for me was that I didn’t find the main character as sympathetic; but then, that’s also part of what made this book so good.

*4 Stars*

Copy kindly received via NetGalley for an honest review.

A very intriguing storyline. Interesting characters and a very surprising ending.

Would recommend.

Love a good cult book, but this one unfortunately did not work for me. I think the jacket design is one of the most compelling I've seen in ages, and I suspect the setting and the ultra-current premise will ensure it finds readers. I found myself frustrated with aspects of the characterisations and the overall conceit.

It's very hard to say anything about the plot of Catch Us the Foxes without giving spoilers. There are twists, upon twists, upon twists.

The book starts with Marlowe attending an on stage interview at The Sydney Opera House. She is famous for solving the murder of her best friend, and Kiama showgirl, Lily seven years ago.
The story then moves to Marlowe's book that she has written about the case. A book within a book!

There is plenty of action in this story that mentions cults, mental illness and small town secrets. The moments of suspense had me holding my breath as they ramped up during Marlowe's investigation. Even though the twists when they were revealed didn't give me that 'oh my gosh' moment, I was totally immersed in Marlowe's story and read the book in two days. West's short sharp chapters make it easy to say 'just on more chapter' over and over.

Catch Us the Foxes is a cleverly plotted murder mystery and fantastic debut from up and coming crime novelist Nicola West. I am genuinely looking forward to her next offering

If you're after a disturbing and unsettling read with all the twists and turns and darkness of the human spirit that you can imagine, this is totally your book. I was absolutely hooked, from start to finish and I have to admit that the ending took me by surprise. The author crafted a suspenseful tale that gave a creepy insight into human nature and readers will be left asking questions of themselves and what they'd do in the same situation.

1/10 stars

My full review can be found on my blog (link below).

Firstly, an announcement. Catch Us The Foxes is officially the worst book I’ve read this year – I know, I know, the year hasn’t ended yet, but I sincerely hope I won’t read anything worse than this – and it really had some solid contenders for this dubious award. But none of the other horrible books of 2021 seems written specifically with money in mind and nothing else. Well, there’s always a first. Now that the weight is off my chest and I can breathe freely, I can muster my writing skill to explain why I think that you should avoid this book like a plague.

And to think that it all started so innocuously. I was asked to review a thriller written by an Australian writer about “a small Aussie town and its secrets – and I thought, “what can go wrong?” What indeed. The list of what didn’t would be much, much shorter, but as I really need to share my misery with you, you’ll be treated to at least some of the cardinal sins of Catch Us The Foxes. Spoilers ahead!

Sin no. 1. Total lack of research. The plot of Catch Us The Foxes is built around a villainous quasi-religious cult (view spoiler)

I seriously don’t know where to start with indicating what is wrong with this idea. Every single part of it showcases a total lack of thought and research on the author’s part. I read this, my eyes bleeding, and imagined the author coming up with this unholy mixture while sitting with a bottle of wine or something stronger, and then another, and another, because one bottle would clearly not be enough to come up with such idiotic concepts. Beltane, fox hunting, child abuse, psychiatrical ring of kidnappers, and Song of Solomon. Yeah, that’s a sure recipe for success!

Sin no. 2. Poor writing. The novel is written very badly, there’s no way around it. The dialogues seem forced and artificial, and the constant intrusion of slang words doesn’t make it come across as more authentic – just more juvenile. The author seemed unable to decide whether she wanted to write a slick thriller or a girly memoir, so she combined both styles and delivered a lifeless monstrosity. Like the bower bird mentioned in the novel, West just gathered all the shiny, colorful bits she could think of – but unlike the bird, she was unable to construct a cohesive or even remotely aesthetic structure from them.

(A side note: The main character seems to constantly suffer from an undiagnosed digestive disease: there’s always either something lodged in her throat or in the pit of her stomach. She should really see someone.)

Sin no. 3. Flat, lifeless characters that quickly turn into stereotypes (often offensive and always painful to read). The protagonist is a very very special snowflake: a wondrously beautiful woman ogled by every male in town, even gay. She doesn’t realize her own beauty, because she is asexual and the only thing less appealing to her than men are women (it’s a loose quote, I really can’t be forced to page through this drivel again). She’s obviously very tenacious and smart, with a chip on her shoulder the size of the Empire State Building, and an inferiority complex toward her best female friend (who ends up dead at the very beginning, but that’s beside the point, as we’re treated to symptoms of that inferiority complex to the very, very end of the book). She’s also a psychopath, “genetically,” but as the author couldn’t really decide which would be better, and apparently couldn’t have been bothered to check the differences, she actually comes off more as a sociopath.

[...]

Sin no. 4. Shock value above all. The author clearly tried her best at coming up with the most convoluted scenario. She actually succeeded, but at the price of destroying all of the internal logic (however tenuous it was from the start), readers’ investment, and credibility. The final scenario is simply unbelievable enough to jarr even the most dedicated readers out of the reading experience. It’s not anchored in the earlier events, and it has no foundations whatsoever, be they psychological or circumstantial. I guess it goes without saying that there’s no character development here, consistency, or even a pinch of probability.

Sin no. 5. Demonizing otherness and subscribing to the conspiracy theory mentality. I mean, wow. If I were a Kiama inhabitant, I’d be considering a libel suit. Kiama is the root of all evil here; xenophobic and homophobic (it seems that the author doesn’t know the difference between the two), going as far in their hatred as to organize an impromptu lynch on a murder suspect. The resident gay had to escape to Sydney, and the second one adamantly refuses to be recognized as gay. All men are swine, and women are entirely without agency – with the exception of our special snowflake, of course. The town’s police are criminally inept. Also, let’s not forget Kiama is the nest of the nefarious cult. Clearly, there’s not one sane person in Kiama (well, maybe one, but he’s a crypto gay [which is clearly a minus in the author’s book, as she spends lots of time on this tidbit] and gullible to the point of idiocy, so he doesn’t count)!

[...]

I have received a copy of this book from the publisher through NetGalley in exchange for an honest review. My thanks.

Unfortunately this book just wasn't for me however I do think there is an audience out there for it. Someone new to a crime/thriller genre might easily get swept up in this story however I wasn't able to connect to the characters and I wasn't a fan of how some of the issue/themes were handled.

There are plenty of unexpected twists and untrustworthy characters in journalist Nicola West's crime-thriller fiction debut, Catch Us The Foxes. It brought to my mind the cult 1990's television series Twin Peaks, which also depicted a shocking crime in a small town setting, and featured a similarly beguiling ending.
The book is presented as meta-fiction, in that the main part of the narrative, bookended by a prologue and epilogue set seven years after the main action, purports to be another book, entitled "The Showgirl's Secret", written by the main protagonist. In that context, journalist-turned-celebrated-true-crime-writer Marlowe "Lo" Robertson relates events that take place over the course of a single week in and around the NSW coastal town of Kiama, located 120km south of Sydney.
Lo, a recent university graduate in journalism, works as an intern for the local paper, and has been sent to take a series of photographs at Kiama's agricultural show, which will later form the paper's photo gallery. This would normally be the job of Lily Williams, Lo's erstwhile best friend and a paid cadet at the paper, but she's otherwise occupied as this year's Kiama Showgirl. [For the benefit of non-Australian readers, we're not talking about "showgirls" of the Las Vegas variety, but a sort of local charity pageant that's associated with rural shows in Australia and New Zealand.]
Lo's become used to existing in Lily's shadow - for years it's been the stunningly beautiful and well-connected Lily who's been the recipient of jobs, scholarships and opportunities ahead of Lo, despite the latter's efforts to succeed.
Things take a sinister turn when Lo takes a shortcut through the showground stables on the way to meet her father, Kiama's senior police officer. She's shocked to discover Lily's lifeless body, bearing a fatal head wound and a series of unusual symbols carved into the flesh on her back. Lo raises the alarm and the criminal investigation begins, but her father makes an odd request - don't mention the skin carvings to anybody.
Despite her shock at Lily's violent death, Lo's journalistic instincts take hold and she begins her own investigation into the curious events leading up to Lily's murder. The plot thickens when she's given Lily's private journals by Kiama outcast-turned successful avante garde artist Jarrah. The tale they tell is startling - a strange death cult involving the town's great and good - including Lily's own adoptive parents - and protected by local law enforcement - Lo's father. Lo's reluctant to accept Lily's story of child abuse and murder, but when she senses that a cover-up is being orchestrated to account for Lily's untimely death, she begins to believe that she's found a career-breaking story.
There's plenty of misdirection and red herrings, and a cast of volatile characters surrounding Lo, whose own credibility is also brought into question as she's clearly suffering from shock. Catch Us The Foxes explores a range of themes, including small-town attitudes, the impact of xenophobia, police corruption, journalistic integrity and parent-child relationships. I found it an intriguing read, but was unconvinced by Marlow's portrayal as a qualified journalist in her early 20's - considering that she regards Kiama as a "bucolic little hellhole" (loc. 60) and resents being constantly in Lily's shadow, what on earth is she doing still living there?
While the novel concludes with an undeniably shocking twist, I didn't really find it satisfying in the context of the whole. In fact, I wonder whether the book might have been more successful in the literary sense had both the prologue and epilogue been removed and the central plot tightened up somewhat. That said, I see a lot of promise in Nicola West's writing - her character development and dialogue was excellent, and the small town setting skilfully drawn. I've noted the comments of other reviewers about her use of a real town for the setting of her novel, in which that town's (fictional) occupants are depicted as engaging in various nefarious activities. West in fact grew up in Kiama herself and her online biography states that she once "vowed to be as far removed from both her hometown and her father’s profession (a police officer) as possible". Certainly, there are plenty of titles within the crime-thriller genre that are set in real places, and I assume that West probably considered using an imaginary name for the town in which her book is set, notwithstanding that various landmarks would be identifiable to local readers. It would be interesting to know her rationale for retaining Kiama as the setting, but as I'm not familiar with the town myself, I can't say the issue really impacted upon my experience of reading the novel.
In conclusion, I found Catch Us The Foxes to be an intriguing read that ultimately fell a little short in execution. I'd recommend it to readers who enjoy high-drama in their thrillers, dark and twisty themes and well-described regional Australian settings. I look forward to reading future releases by Nicola West.
My thanks to the author, Nicola West, publisher Simon & Schuster Australia and NetGalley for the opportunity to read and review this title.

4.25☆


One of the most compelling murder mystery thrillers I've read.

For fans of Midsomer, Marcella, and Twin Peaks, Catch Us The Foxes draws you into the small sleepy town of Kiama and and the consequences of a night at the Show that the town will never forget.

When Marlowe finds her best friend, Lily, dead body in a dark secluded section of the Show, what else is the jounalist and daughter of the town's head cop to do but investigate. When she's silenced about some strange symbols that mark Lily's back, Marlowe goes dark on her investigation, drawing on information from others in Lily's life and experiences.

This debut novel by Nicola West will leave you on the hurricane ride, leaving you questioning everything and trusting no one.

3 1/2 * Thank you for Simon and Schuster for providing me an ARC of this book. This is not normally a book I would read as murder/mystery/cult is not my favourite genre but it sounded unusual and interesting. Set in rural Australia the storyline is compelling if a little unbelievable for such events to occur in a small town. I found the book stayed with me for a long while when my imagination took over and and certainly didn't pick the ending. The story is well constructed although the use of foul language and slang is offputting. The author created well constructed characters who were believable and authentic, all of whom were likely suspects of the murder. The reason for my 3 star rating is the subject matter which I didn't particularly enjoy but think those who are into this type of book would find it hard to put down.

Oh dear! I am not sure where to start.
This novel is set in Kiama where some truly awful things happen. Such as child abductions, torture and murders to satisfy the cult culture of the town. All the residents seem to be connected with it. As other reviewers have already stated, I am not sure why the author did not fictionalise the town because of this.
The book flip flopped all over the place. It was very hard to follow. You were never really sure who the baddies were or who the goodies were. They each took a turn! There were no likeable characters at all. Even the protagonist, budding journalist Marlowe (Lo), was not an appealing person

Catch Us the Foxes is a book I desperately wanted to love, and there were certainly elements of the story that I liked a lot. That said, there were elements of the storytelling that also gave me pause.

Lo is an ambitious young woman who desperately wants to escape her small hometown and pursue her career as a journalist. When her friend, Lily, is murdered, Lo is the one to discover her body, complete with symbols carved on her back. When Lo's father, the local police chief, covers up the markings, Lo knows something's not what it seems, and then she ends up in possession of Lily's journals, which suggest that the town is hiding a dark secret, Lo begins to investigate.

This book is deeply atmospheric and creepy. Nicola West certainly knows how to weave twist after twist until you don't know who to believe or who might be behind the murder. The setting felt claustrophobic and frightening, as though Lo didn't have anyone she could turn to. Many of the characters seem to secrets and motives and Lo is constantly trying to unravel both.

I also found the storytelling style - and epilogue and prologue in the present day - and the chapters in between told as a true crime recount novel written by Lo to be fascinating. Ultimately though, it felt like the prologue needed a lot more to support the final twist at the end. It was also an interesting choice on the part of author to set this in a real town, Kiama. While it didn't bother me so much, I was surprised, because typically with a story like this you'd have a fictional town based on a real one. 

The book talks a lot about characters dealing with mental illnesses, however, it always comes up tangentially without delving into it in depth or exploring the effects of it. It was used as a plot device , which, while effective in throwing doubt on some of the characters' motives, didn't always sit right me. Similarly, there are queer characters who experience extreme homophobia and bullying from the town residents. Most of the time, they didn't feel like that had a true purpose other than to show the small-mindedness of people.

Overall, I have conflicting feelings about the book. As a thriller, it's a solid page-turner, but I think there's still some room for improvement. It's a good debut and I'm interested in seeing what Nicola West brings out next.

An exciting debut novel by Australian author Nicola West. This is a dark story about budding intern journalist Marlowe and the murder of her friend Lily. Marlowe is unhappy with the police investigation into her friend’s death. She decides to investigate herself, not necessarily a great decision as we don’t always like the answers we find.
Her determination, however, provides a journey that will keep you guessing until the very end.
I really enjoyed this author’s first book and look forward to more from her.
If you love thrillers with twists and turns that keep you guessing, this book is one you’ll definitely want to read.

A murder mystery set in coastal New South Wales, this was a fast-paced read that drew me in immediately. Although the twists were a bit convoluted, I still really liked how the mystery was solved and the journey to get there. Would definitely recommend this book.

We first meet Malowe (Lo), the main protagonist of Catch Us The Foxes, seven years after the events that she’s discussing as part of a live-audience event. Now famous for her best-selling book and setting up the Lily Foundation in memory of her best friend, the book then travels back in time to the day of Lily’s murder and Marlowe’s role in its investigation


Lo is desperate to escape the small Australian town where she and Lily grew up. Jealous of Lily’s success and her opportunity to pursue a journalist cadetship in Sydney, Lily has less than week left in Kiama when Lo finds her body at the town’s Showground with strange symbols carved into her back. Her policeman father tells her to forget that she has ever seen the marks, something that sparks Lo’s interest and suspicion and sets her on a trail to find out the truth


So far, so engaging….the small town setting worked and the central mystery was well set up, encouraging me to continue to turn the pages. However, as the story progressed, it became increasingly convoluted, doubling if not tripling back on itself which would typically sustain my interest, but I just didn’t care for Marlowe, for the townsfolk or for anyone other than Lily really. I kept reading to the end, but it did feel a little too much like work….