SD HINTON The Brothers. Reviewed by Karen Chisholm

SD Hinton’s debut novel uses the structure of a thriller to explore myriad responses to trauma.

Jake Harlow is a decorated Special Forces veteran, returned from a tour in Afghanistan that went horribly wrong for him. Captured by the Taliban, he was mentally and physically tortured in an appalling manner. On his return he is hospitalised for a long time, recovering from a list of injuries that are hinted at rather than described in detail:

‘… “It was his hands.” I didn’t know what he was talking about at first. He said for all your injuries, all the bandages and tubes and shit on your body, it was the state of your hands that knocked the life out of him. Reckoned the gouges on your wrists were like violent bracelets. The story they told haunted him.’

What happened in Afghanistan is only part of the suffering that Jake and his sister Ali have recently endured. Three years ago, he’d had to return to Lorne, on the surf coast of Victoria, to attend the funeral of his parents, dead from accidental carbon monoxide poisoning. Now he’s still recovering from his injuries, but has left his home in Western Australia to return to Lorne again, this time for the funeral of his brother, dead in an accidental drowning. Jake knows that his capture by the Taliban was his own fault, but the accidental death of three members of his family feels like something else – even before he starts finding threatening notes in his brother’s house, where Jake has based himself after the funeral.

Lorne is a surfing community made up of long-term locals, recent full-time incomers, and a lot of holiday-makers. It’s an area that is dear to Jake and his sister, somewhere their family had been happy and very close. It was also where his brother ran a successful dive shop and surf school with his best friend Stocky, making an accidental drowning seem very unlikely right from the outset. Tom knew this area and wasn’t one for taking risks.

Now Tom was gone, never to return, drowned. A professional diver drowning? How did that make sense?

As the threats start to escalate, Stocky realises there’s something going on with Jake, and the discovery of the extent of the threat, and the damage done to Jake by the Taliban, turns him from brother’s mate to personal friend and protector. When Tom’s ex-girlfriend Lucy finds out about their suspicions, and that Jake and his sister are now under threat, she joins a most unlikely band of three doing everything they can against an invisible, unknown perpetrator with a grudge against the Harlow family.

Written in precise, economical prose, SD Hinton is exploring more than just the external threat to Jake and Ali. The Brothers tackles trauma and PTSD in a way that’s informative and empathetic. Jake was struggling with his past and present, but the threat to his family now finds him unsure of the future as well. His training helps in handling the physicality of a threat like this, and the therapy he’s received as a result of the Afghanistan experience both helps and hinders his interactions with friends, family, people in the street, and with the pressure he’s under. It helps in that he knows his trigger points and knows what he should do; it hinders in that he’s under too much pressure again, and knowing what to do and actually doing it can be two different things. Especially for a man who prides himself on his ability to cope, even if his therapist Rachel is not so convinced.

‘I’d forgotten how much you favour a direct approach,’ she said. Jake doubted her memory had failed her that badly. ‘We’re here to see how you’re managing. Maybe have a chat about any issues we might be able to help you with. You’ve had some difficult things to get through in recent times, and we haven’t touched base for a while. As you and I have discussed in the past, even the most resilient of us has a finite ability to cope with adversity.’

None of this reads as overt angst, though. All three main characters reveal themselves as the story goes on, and the other two aren’t profoundly damaged, more a bit ratty around the edges. Stocky and Lucy turn out to be intelligent, humorous and kind – and courageous enough to stand up to the unseen threat, and to Jake himself, an intimidating figure in his own right. The touches of laid-back Australian humour in the interactions between these two are a highlight of the story, as is their awareness that running a dive shop and being an aspiring actress are not ideal backgrounds for saving lives in the face of a determined and highly skilled assailant.

‘So, who’d you aggravate today, mate?’ Stocky asked. Jake told them about his meeting with Gabriel Waters. …

‘An amiable meeting. Novel. How about Ballarat?’ Stocky said.

The tension and pace are high-octane, balanced nicely against the human frailty of Jake. He comes across as someone who is much more comfortable in a team, but as he struggles with the responsibility after Afghanistan, he thinks he should be more of a lone wolf, a situation that elegantly reflects his experiences in war and his military training. His physical limitations also mean that he’s having to come at all this with less bravado and more smarts – something he seems surprised to find he can handle. Especially when the source of the threat and the reasons for it are eventually revealed, and his childhood memories start to look a lot different.

As Jake came back into the room, he turned to the family photo on the desk, looked it over. Something had changed.

Using the structure of a thriller to explore the damage that adrenaline-charged events cause to the human psyche, The Brothers is built on a really strong foundation, which Hinton combines with an intricate plot, relying on just the occasional ‘what-the’ moment in a dynamic, tight and extremely tense novel that’s instructive, as well as extremely engaging.

SD Hinton The Brothers HarperCollins 2022 PB 400pp $32.99

Karen Chisholm blogs from austcrimefiction.org, where she posts book reviews as well as author biographies.

You can buy The Brothers from Abbey’s at a 10% discount by quoting the promotion code NEWTOWNREVIEW or you can buy it from Booktopia.

You can also check if it is available from Newtown Library.

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Tags: Afghanistan war, Australian writers, crime fiction, mystery, PTSD, thriller, war veterans