In the mid 1990′s Australian Jayne Keeney has been living in Thailand for a number of years and works as a private detective, aided by her ability to speak Thai and French as well as her native English. As this book opens Jayne is hired by an Australian man Jim Delbeck to investigate the death of his daughter Maryanne. The girl was volunteering at an orphanage run by a Christian group in Pattaya, a seedy coastal town south of Bangkok, when she apparently committed suicide some months earlier. Her father fervently believes that she would not have killed herself and he wants Jayne to find out the truth.

This is the second book of Savage’s to feature Jayne Keeney but the first I have read and it was a genuine pleasure to do so. Jayne is an interesting character but never so quirky or odd as to be unbelievable. Her work as a detective and life as an outsider in a foreign land both have a real ring of truth to them which made it easy to be drawn into the compelling story. In order to learn more about Maryanne, Jayne decides to volunteer at the same centre the girl had been working at which leads her into what at first seems like a tangential investigation. This takes the book in a touching but tough direction which resulted in an atypically surprising and satisfyingly complex resolution.

Savage has used the conventions of a crime novel to explore some important social themes and political issues including the role of international adoptions in poorer countries but does so in a subtle, non-judgemental way. It would have been very easy for this kind of story to fall into that peculiarly pious category of novel in which ‘westerners’ denounce their own heritage and embrace in its entirety whatever local culture they are writing about. But Savage’s approach is far more interesting and engaging. There are helpful, intelligent people from all the cultural backgrounds she depicts and the nasty, villainous types also cross the cultural boundaries. Go figure.

I really had no expectations of this book, having read little about it, but as it was on the list of titles eligible for this year’s Davitt Awards and as my library had a copy on its shelves I decided to give it a go and am absolutely thrilled to have done so. It is a real treat of a novel offering engaging and believable characters, a thoughtful and intelligent plot and a subtle, complex insight into the culture in which it is set. There is also some delightful humour, much of which is provided by Jayne’s budding relationship with Rajiv, a young man of Indian heritage who has taken on looking after Jayne’s favourite bookshop while its owner, Rajiv’s uncle, is in hospital. It is from Rajiv that Jayne learns that heroes can come in a variety of forms. I highly recommend this novel to all. ( )

Publisher's blurb
Jayne Keeney is a fiesty thirty-something Aussie who has been living in Bangkok for many years. She has been hired to investigate the alleged suicide of a young Australian woman in a seedy Thai coastal town. Maryanne Delbeck was happy and harmless, her father refuses to believe she took her own life. Jayne immerses herself in the case, navigating the backstreet world of Thai ladyboys, monks, strippers, expats and corrupt officials.
Maryanne’s death is not the only mystery awaiting Jayne among Pattaya’s neon signs and go-go bars. While working undercover at the orphanage where Maryanne volunteered, Jayne discovers something far more sinister. Now her life is in danger, her case is still unsolved and she barely has time for dinner with her handsome new love interest, Rajiv. With love and death both circling, Jayne now has two cases to crack and very little time to do it.

My take:

Maryanne Delbeck was a twenty-one-year old Australian volunteer working for Young Christian Volunteers in Bangkok. The year is 1996. Less than five months after her arrival in Thailand Maryanne jumped from a hotel rooftop in Pattaya, falling fourteen storeys to her death. She had found work at the New Life Child Centre in Pattaya, an orphanage that prepares babies for international adoption.

Jayne Keeney decides the best way to investigate what caused Maryanne to jump is to volunteer at the orphanage herself. In her gathering of relevant information she calls in favours from a friend at the Australian Embassy, from a new Indian friend Rajiv, and from Police Major General Wichit whom she assisted in a case involving his own daughter. As Jayne extends her net she realises she is looking at something much more organised than a young woman's suicide.

I'm not an expert in Thai culture by any means but I have been to Thailand several times in the last 30 years, and spent time not only in Bangkok but also Chiang Mai and Kanchanaburi. Angela Savage's settings and descriptions rang very true for me, and I thought a very credible flavour of Thailand came through.

The plot in THE HALF-CHILD is very credible, and well threaded. Angela Savage shows how a crime fiction author can get under the skin of another culture, and focus on social issues as well as a crime fiction theme.
A very good read from an Australian author worth your while to look for. I think you can read these books out of order - I had rather hazy memories of the previous title in the series, BEHIND THE NIGHT BAZAAR. ( )

Good crime fiction, for me anyway, frequently goes hand in hand with a spotlight on social issues. If it incorporates a good, strong sense of place and great characters that you can really feel something about, then even better.

THE HALF-CHILD is Melbourne author Angela Savage's second Jayne Keeney book. This book is set in Thailand, but the focus this time is on the beachside resort of Pattaya, a strange combination of tourist resort, family friendly locations, sleazy bars and strip-joints. Jayne finds herself in Pattaya as she is hired to investigate the case of a young Australian woman who died there, falling from the roof of one of the tourist hotels. Jayne's investigation involves undercover work, hiding the fact that she can speak fluent Thai, working at the most menial of volunteering tasks in an orphanage, coming to grips in a hurry with the way that this orphanage balances the care of local children, often with their single mothers working nearby in the tourist bars and strip-joints, with the requirements of abandoned or orphaned children intended for overseas adoption.

The impetus behind this story is overseas adoptions when unscrupulous people get involved, people who effectively are trafficking babies to unsuspecting foreign couples, desperate to adopt. Savage has not given herself a particularly easy subject to tackle. The book has to negotiate a minefield, illustrating the experience for everyone involved, careful to show the impact on all sides, whilst still maintaining an investigative imperative. This is not a book that lectures about the pitfalls, and there's a part of the resolution of this complex emotional situation that's possibly going to startle some readers, sadden and confront.

The other thing about these books is that Jayne, herself, isn't a straight-forward character. She's a little bit out there, unpredictable, upfront and frequently prickly, she's no fool, even though she can get a little, let's call it "over enthusiastic". And perhaps that's the only thing that might annoy some readers - what I'm calling "over enthusiastic" some may want to say teeters on the edge of crazy - but then I can see Jayne's very much a "poke the bear / none of this let sleeping bears lie nonsense" sort of a girl. There are therefore times when you admire her, and times you want to slap her. Times you think she's a raging idiot, and then she'll be quite cunning. There's even a little romantic tension - although Jayne seems to be alternatively intrigued, sometimes underwhelmed or just flat out indifferent.

It's always interesting, with the second book in a series, to see what changes the author has undertaken in their writing, to look at the quality of the plot, and how the central character is progressing. THE HALF-CHILD is more assured than the first book, and as strange as it seems given the subject matter, a little more relaxed. There's great humour, particularly in the personality of Jayne herself, who doesn't take herself too seriously, and in that of her potential new partner, Rajiv, who provides some much needed patience and sanity in the face of Jayne's more exuberant behaviour.

The great thing about THE HALF-CHILD is that reading this book, you can see there's a lot more to be done with Jane. ( )