The Secret Fate of Mary Watson by Judy Johnson, HarperCollins, $32.99.
“Left Lizard Island September 2nd, 1881 in tank or pot in which beche de mer is boiled. Got about three miles or four from the Lizards.
“September 7. Made for an island four or five miles from the one spoken of yesterday. Ashore, but could not find any water.”
These entries in Mary Oxenham Watson’s “Tank Diary” — found near her and her baby sons’ dead bodies and now housed in a Brisbane library — are the inspiration for Judy Johnson’s novel.
Judy’s Mary is a plain but plucky 19-year old, who escapes her abusive father in Rockhampton.
Yet 1880s’ Far North Queensland is not a place for a young woman on her own: gold miners come into town to drink and seek relief with prostitutes, Chinese opium dens are open for business and punitive expeditions against the Aborigines are meted out regularly.
Out of desperation, she accepts a job as a piano player in a Cooktown brothel. Her determination to survive and make a life for herself lead her unknowingly into the murky yet lucrative world of international espionage and the race to claim territory and sea passage for armaments.
As she passes secret notes, decodes messages and enters into a marriage of convenience, she gets entangled.
Although the ending may seem obvious — we already know her fate — it’s not what you think. Judy’s prose is rich with metaphor and imagery and Mary is a heroine we hope does live to tell the tale.
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