El Dorado, Dorothy Porter

[Karen from AustCrime]

Welllllll - stranger things have happened, but I read a Crime Fiction in
Verse book during MWF.

Even more unexpectedly, I really enjoyed it.

Author: Dorothy Porter
Publisher: Pan Macmillan Australia
Copyright: 2007
ISBN: 978-0-3304-2304-5
Pages: 369

Synopsis:

There is a serial child killer stalking the streets of Melbourne.

The victims are killed gently, lovingly, a gold mark traced on their
forehead.

This killer doesn't hate children. This killer believes in childhood
innocence at any cost.

Unflinching and morally uncompromising, El Dorado is the story of a
friendship under siege, and the very long shadows that jealousy and
betrayal can cast. It is both a complex thriller and a compelling
reading experience from Australia's maverick and most versatile poet.

Review:

I'll be perfectly honest - I circled El Dorado in the Readings tent at
the Melbourne Writers festival for days. It's a contemporary Australian
crime fiction thriller. It was long-listed for the 2007 Ned's and I'd
promised myself to read the entire list of nominees this year. So why
was I circling?

Well El Dorado is a verse novel - poetry and I admit I'm never convinced
about reading poetry. Sure I love listening to some bush poetry, and I
love to listen to some I guess you'd call them performance poets - ask
everyone about dragging me away from Lem Sissay's performances at last
year's MWF - but reading an entire verse novel.... a crime verse novel.
Errrrrrrrrrr

So I circled.

The opening verse is a ripper mind you:

The little girl's
dead hand
is sticking stiffly
up
as if reaching
to grab an angel's foot.

Hmmmmmmmmmmm

Then I found this stanza on page 8 and I was heading for the cash register:

It's not often
I envy
Detective Sergeant Rodney Mason

but a man
with no imagination
and no sense of smell -
'the wife reckons
that's why
I never buy her flowers' -
is right at home
in the city morgue

El Dorado is fascinating. As a story it switches from dark comedy, to
tragedy. The personal lives of the investigating team are laid bare, the
raw grief of families who lose a child to a murderer, the panic and
worry as it becomes increasingly obvious that not only do they not know
who, they don't understand why. There's pace, there's a progression of
the story and it's done in pared down, beautifully worded verse.

El Dorado is a great crime novel. It's compelling verse. All I can say
is don't circle it like I did - grab a copy and try it - you'll probably
find yourself mildly astounded.