Book review: Horrible Man: Sinister Secrets and Truths Untold by Leonie Wallace

LEONIE Wallace has an endearing manner in her first book, which centres on the unsolved murders of two women.

LEONIE Wallace has an endearing manner in her first book, one that makes the reader feel she is genuinely concerned about the victims and their families.

She frequently injects her own feelings into the text, and it is obvious how much research and legwork she has done.

There is also a website with additional information.

The story centres on the unsolved murders of two women, Margaret Penny and Claire Acocks, on May 3, 1991, in Portland, Victoria.

Acocks was a hairdresser and she was attending to Penny, her customer, in the Old London Coiffure when they were brutally killed.

Not long before, a "horrible man" frightened Acocks in the salon, but he has never been identified.

Wallace speaks to a large range of people and uncovers bizarre events linked to the crime, often equally tragic, such as the chaotic life of one suspect, Gordon Smith, who eventually commits suicide.

Wallace brings much humanity to this sad story but I wish the concept of "closure" was not used, as it gives the false idea of a neat end point in grieving.

Fortunately, the interviews show the variety of ways in which traumatic events affect different people.

There is wildly incorrect use of commas and other grammatical oddities, but otherwise the book is engaging and a fascinating, if grim, study of human behaviour.

Horrible Man: Sinister Secrets and Truths Untold
Leonie Wallace
Fontaine Press, $29.95