The Housemate, by Sarah Bailey

In a share house in Melbourne one young woman is dead, one has been arrested for her murder and one has disappeared. Investigative journalist Oli Groves was on the scene of the housemate murder, 10 years earlier. Now the missing woman has turned up and Oli is assigned to work on a podcast, as well as the news, with Cooper, an eager young digital journalist. As they dig up more about what did and didn’t happen 10 years ago, the mismatched pair find themselves in danger and unsure of who to trust. Oli’s approach to work and life is informed by childhood trauma, its impacts slowly revealed as the story progresses. Now engaged to the man she was having an affair with 10 years ago, Oli struggles to balance work with family commitments. They reunited after the death of his wife, who was coincidentally the police detective on the housemate murder case. The investigation sparks doubts about her fiancé’s controlling ways and his possible involvement in a crime. Can their relationship survive? There is a lot of complicated stuff going on here and a few too many coincidences and interconnections that are a bit of a stretch in a large city. The story spirals continually darker and is all rather grim by the end.