Why Melbourne author Sarah Bailey makes her readers so angry

The detective at the heart of Sarah Bailey’s first three books is a source of frustration and admiration for readers, so much so she gets “a lot of angry emails” especially from older women. So what is it about her protagonist that irks people?

Melbourne author Sarah Bailey is used to getting angry emails from frustrated readers. But she wouldn’t change a thing.

You just want to scream “stop” every time Sarah Bailey’s protagonist in her latest Gemma Woodstock mystery even thinks about making a decision.

You start pleading with her to first take a deep breath and see she has people who care about her and there are other options.

But it rarely happens.

“I do get a lot of emails from people who are so angry at her, and really cross with me for writing someone who is so frustrating, especially older women,” Bailey says.

“It’s that person who is capable and competent and trusted with really serious tasks and jobs, but who is really, really useless at day-to-day life.”

Where The Dead Go by Sarah Bailey.

Where The Dead Go is the third appearance of Det-Sgt Gemma Woodstock (after The Dark Lake in 2017 and last year’s Into the Night), who starts her professional life in country Victoria, moves to Melbourne in the second and then to northern NSW in the latest.

She is a mother with few maternal instincts, who works in a male-dominated environment and sees asking for help as a weakness and “playing into the expectations that she can’t cope”.

“It would have been easier to write a character who is not maternal and doesn’t have children, and have that be the story, but I think in a way her not being maternal and having a child is really interesting because it shows that constant friction and that navigation she has to do where she doesn’t enjoy motherhood,” Bailey says.

“But she’s responsible in the sense that she would never completely opt out of it and she loves (her son). It’s almost like the motherhood part of it, she’s not interested in. It’s a real battle for her, an ongoing battle.”

And having her son Ben being inconvenient to the plot “is the whole point”, providing another device to keep the reader turning the pages, no matter how exasperated they become with Woodstock.

“She is quite selfish and wants to do all these things and having to factor (Ben) into it, that’s her challenge in it all,” Bailey says.

“I feel like that’s the whole tension point. She frustrates me, too. It’s almost too much, but I think we all know people who are infuriating in that way.”

But Woodstock always remains true to character. In this instalment, as her troubles mount, she seems even more determined to reject help and heap poor life decisions on good professional ones.

But Woodstock always goes where her personality takes her. Anything else would ring false.

The question of masculinity is also explored, particularly with older cops — one her mentor who has been nothing but supportive, and the cop she is replacing while he recovers from injury, who has no use for women in the force.

“Because she lost her mother it would have been almost easier to find a female, maternal figure for her to fill that void,” Bailey says. “But in a way I like that she seeks out this male mentor even though she has a dad. (She) and her dad are close but it’s always been a kind of polite relationship.”

Jonesy, her first boss, understands her ambition and can see she has the ability to be a good detective. But he can also see she needs help, reassurance and guidance, even when she resents it.

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Her ambition is also recognised by her ex-husband who, in the first book, knows he will have to be the primary caregiver to Ben. But it’s a role he takes to easily.

“In a kind of weird way he accepts her for what she is. He really cares about her.”

While the character of Gemma Woodstock came almost fully formed in Bailey’s mind, the author has no idea where she came from.

Bailey works in advertising, so it is no way autobiographical, there are no police in the family and she’s never lived in the country.

“It’s not based on anybody I know but I just had this really clear idea of this person who had a little bit of arrested development, a 28-year-old but stunted in terms of maturity,” she says.

“She’s street smart but not worldly, hasn’t experienced other cultures, anything like that. I think that’s one key point about her, that she’s never travelled. She’s never been anywhere.”

Bailey, 37, who grew up in Melbourne’s eastern suburbs and now lives in Richmond, is working on a new book that — temporarily, we hope — leaves Woodstock behind.

“The next book I work on is not going to be part of the series, it’s going to be a stand-alone,” she says.

“It’s a totally new story, still crime, with a journalist protagonist. I’ve mapped out the story, but I’ve only written a couple of chapters. It’s a bit of a cold case story.”

WHERE THE DEAD GO IS OUT NOW

ALLEN & UNWIN, RRP $29.99