The Year of the Farmer, by Rosalie Ham

Drought has put everyone under pressure in country New South Wales, not least struggling sheep farmer Mitch. His crops are failing, his debt is crippling, his old Dad’s health is failing and he is married to a complete bitch. Life offers hope and complication when his lost love Neralie returns to town to run the pub, but then there are the latest machinations of the Water Authority to deal with. They want to cut allocations, raise rates, impose the use of expensive and possibly useless technology and generally make life even harder. A blackly comic take on the state of water usage and abusage in regional Australia, recent events in the Murray-Darling Basin almost make this novel read more like an academic text. Ham has clearly done her research and there are sections where she overdoes the didacticism, but on the whole the story is entertaining and rings very true. Everyone gets a say and a serve – farmers, irrigators, water traders, riparians and ferals – but sympathies are well and truly with the farmers while the villains are corrupt bureaucrats and expedient politicians.

Nine Perfect Strangers, by Liane Moriarty

Nine people who are not actually perfect strangers, as two are married and three are a family, travel to Tranquillum health and wellness resort for a 10-day retreat. With so many characters it takes a long time to introduce them all and then it’s easy to lose track of them and their various traumas. Most turn out to be quite interesting – all dealing with various life crises and looking for change. The least credible character is Masha, the resort director, who is determined to effect permanent change for her guests and implements unusual methods to achieve it. The tone is very uneven; Moriarty can’t seem to decide whether she is a champion of the wellness industry or a snide critic of it and wavers wildly between the two positions throughout. About half way through the retreat turns from a wellness journey to a medical and psychological experiment and the book jumps the shark. All credibility is shot as the story just turns silly. Moriarty canvasses a lot of issues through her multitude of characters but the sheer breadth means there is little depth in a lightweight tale that only pretends to a balance of humour and darkness. The nine miraculously manage to achieve their goals for change, if not in quite the way they expected, but nobody, least of all the reader, learns anything of use along the way.

Good Behaviour (TNT)

Michelle Dockery demonstrates her versatility with her portrayal of Letty, an addict and ex con whose life inadvertently gets tangled with that of a hitman. Hot sex and shocking violence are the hallmarks of the first few episodes but the series develops into a complex family drama as Letty and Javier build a relationship, almost despite themselves. Introduced first to her dysfunctional family and then to his, we start to understand how they came to be the damaged individuals they are. The big question is whether they can overcome their pasts and do they have a future? Based on a series of books, the characters have depth and breadth, with touches of subtlety and unexpected humour. They are aided by an interesting supporting cast plus killer theme music and soundtrack. Dockery does a bit of a Tatiana Maslany turn, creating multiple characters with wigs and accents as Letty runs her elaborate cons. There is a second series, so the question of a future will likely be answered. One can only hope it is as good as the first; sometimes it is better not to know what happens next.

The Lost Man, by Jane Harper

A man dies in mysterious circumstances on an outback property in south west Queensland. It looks like suicide but the dead man’s older brother Nathan isn’t so sure. A bad decision 10 years ago completely estranged Nathan from his community, making his isolation extreme. Not exactly close to his family, he was the one considered ‘at risk’ by the local nurse and cop, rather than his brother Cam. Tension steadily builds as Nathan uncovers secrets and lies while investigating Cam’s death. Was it actually murder? Was Cam really the nice guy the community thought he was? Should some secrets stay buried? Can Nathan overcome the past and give himself some hope for the future? As in Harper’s first two books, the landscape is almost a character itself. It is intrinsic to events and the way people respond to them and Harper evokes it brilliantly and viscerally. The novel’s dark and topical themes include the extended damage of generational family violence; toxic masculinity and the politics of consent; and the isolation and disadvantage experienced in regional areas. A tenuous link to Harper’s first book The Dry is not really necessary. A brief Agatha Christie moment, where Nathan seems to think everyone done it, teeters on the brink of farce, but Harper brings it back from the edge to a conclusion everyone can live with.

The Spotted Dog, by Kerry Greenwood

Who wouldn’t want to live in Insula, a delightful apartment building in Melbourne’s CBD with a roof garden and an array of intriguing inhabitants? Intrepid baker and sometime detective Corinna Chapman wouldn’t move anywhere else despite, or perhaps because of, the mysteries it seems to attract. This seventh Corinna tale involves a former soldier suffering PTSD whose dog has been napped; several strange break-ins at Insula; and the possible involvement in both of violent Armenian or Azeri criminal gangs. Throw in a wronged and damaged lass in a wheelchair, a young religious fanatic and a troop of actors and there is plenty to occupy Corinna and her lover Daniel. The usual ingredients of delicious food, generous gin & tonics and a plethora of cats add value to the twists and turns of the story. Good fun fare.

Wanderlust (Netflix)

After 20-odd years of marriage Alan and Joy’s sex life has gone stale to the point of non-existence. She is a therapist recovering from a serious cycling accident; he is a high school English teacher; they have three kids in their late teens to early 20s. They love each other and want to stay married, but Joy’s radical suggestion for spicing things up could put everything at risk - their marriage, their family, their careers. Meanwhile their older daughter starts seeing one of Joy’s patients; their younger daughter is falling for a neighbour; and their son finds himself in love with his best friend. Despite a strong ensemble cast the show is clearly a vehicle for Toni Collette. She is good, although her wandering accent is a distraction. The most insightful episode is entirely devoted to a therapy session between Joy and her mentor Angela, played by Sophie Okonedo. Steven Mackintosh engenders sympathy at first as the conflicted Alan, but his entitlement gets a bit irritating; he wants to have his cake and eat it and them blame his wife for everything that goes wrong. Joy and Alan find that too much honesty is not necessarily the best policy. By the end of the six episodes, their kids are forging ahead with their lives while they have come full circle in an interesting idea that ultimately doesn’t seem to go anywhere.

Transcription, by Kate Atkinson

Knocked down by a car in 1981, Juliet Armstrong flashes back to her post-war life at the BBC in 1950 and her wartime experiences with MI5 in 1940. A seemingly naïve 18-year-old secretary, Juliet learns to lie and deceive with the best of them while transcribing recordings of fifth columnist meetings of Nazi sympathisers. It is only in 1950 that she finds out the extent of the manipulations and machinations that continue to haunt her and will affect the rest of her life. It seems that once involved with the security services there is no exit. There are spies within spies and secrets within secrets, all gradually uncovered as Juliet loses her innocence on many fronts. Her career consists of long stretches of mundanity punctuated by brief spells of extreme action and the book follows suit, with extended passages of dull transcription, which call into question the point of it all. In the end all is revealed but one question remains – was it really an accident?