Customer Reviews

The Devil's Eye

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This novel was inspired by the powerful storm known as Hurricane Mahina. In March 1899, Mahina moved across the Coral Sea on a course which set for Cape Melville where almost two thousand people were gathering. At the same time, the northern pearling fleets were in her path, as was a murder investigation in a remote part of the Queensland coast.

The tensions of the approaching storm, the lives and secrets of the characters in the novel, and between the different people and cultures involved in colonial Queensland provides a vivid canvas for this novel. As the natural disaster unfolds, Margaret Porter takes her daughter Alice to join her husband on the pearling schooner `Admiral'. Maggie has news for her husband, and also hopes to persuade her sister Mary to return home to Thursday Island, where their father is the Government Resident.

The movement between the murder investigation, the events on the schooner and the events on land is rapid as the action is largely compressed within a week. The secrets of people, the expectations of society and the powerful might of nature make for a heady combination.

I enjoyed this novel, and would now like to know more about the events represented.

Jennifer Cameron-Smith