A pandemic, a collaboration, a lost child…
Despite the pandemic, Dexter Cathcart is determined to go to Italy to pursue his private case of the mystery journal. He is stopped in his tracks, however, by the closure of the border, then Mack Hannah and his detective agree on another detective novel, this one almost a collaboration.
It’s a strange case of paternity…a wealthy eccentric art collector is anxious to locate the daughter he has never met. The search takes Cathcart to Melbourne, into a disjunctive family and into a bizarre world of influencers, fringe politics and anti-lockdown protests.
Then the writer arrives in the southern capital to pursue the fleeting promise of publication for the writing of his great-aunt, Gertrude, and it isn’t long before their paths cross. Once again, the writer will have to save his detective…
Headlocked is the final novel in the trilogy that began with Writing Between the Lines. It explores the interdependent relationship of writer and character right through to its inevitable end.
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Italy…the news just gets worse. Prime Minister Conte announces a lockdown for Lombardy and fourteen other northern provinces. The commentators are already saying ‘too late’. La Scala and the Duomo closed, the universities shut down, the supermarket shelves stripped bare. Milan is in lockdown, Italy is is on the brink of pandemic panic. The news had been leaked the day before, convincing thousands to abandon the northern provinces, storm the railway stations and scatter to all parts of the country, taking the virus with them. Soon there will be nowhere safe.
None of this is going to change Dexter Cathcart’s mind. The detective has booked his ticket to Milan and nothing short of a war is going to stop him. The plane to Milan, the train to Vicenza, a pleasant overnight in the Hotel Franceschini, then the drive up into the hills to the tiny village of Crissi, back to where the case of the mystery journal all began.
Twice already, Mack Hannah has sat down with his detective and tried to convince him not to go, pointing out the unpredictable nature of the epidemic and reminding him of the culture of bureaucratic bungling and inaction that Italy is so renowned for. Dexter Cathcart was unmoved. He’d survived an assassin’s bullet, what was a bad case of flu compared to that? ‘I’m fit, I’m healthy, I have excellent travel insurance. It’s not an issue!’ Dexter Cathcart is not listening to the writer, because he doesn’t have to.
Private detective Dexter Cathcart is a character who swims against the tide, a character who rarely takes a backward step, a character with a history of outwitting adversaries. He’s the character the writer had always wanted, now there’s nothing Mack Hannah can do. Dexter Cathcart is going to Italy at the worst possible time. There, he will investigate the seductive mystery of Gabriele Massimo’s war-time journal, there, he might very likely put his health and probably his life at risk. On this occasion the writer will not be able to save him.
Mack Hannah has lost out on both counts. Feeling guilty over his fumbled attempt to end the detective’s career, he returned Massimo’s journal to Cathcart as part of their reconciliation. He really didn’t have to do that, he could’ve kept that little conspiracy to himself. Cathcart was already convinced the journal had been lost. Then, pressured to change his mind about writing in the genre, the writer had committed to more Cathcart novels, committed to giving the detective the exposure everyone claims he deserves. But there is no new novel in the wings, because Dexter Cathcart is heading to Italy to pursue his own mystery. He might never be back, then Mack Hannah’s An Artful Conspiracy will end up as Cathcart’s last detective story just by default.
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linzi murrie 