Oh Matilda: The plot summary you’ve been looking for
Confused? We got you. Here’s a chapter-by-chapter cheat sheet for smash-hit summer novel Oh Matilda: Who Bloody Killed Her?
Actor John McCredden, an ageing heart-throb with an Oscar nomination under his belt, emerges from Melbourne lockdown to fly to a white-sand island for a TV project. He’s taken the gig mainly because 71-year-old screen goddess Maya Churchill will be involved; they are old friends but she rejected his advances decades earlier. McCredden flies to the island, sitting next to soap starlet Matilda Meadows, who takes selfies with him. He falls asleep hearing a party going on. The next morning he finds a woman’s body on the lawn.
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The body is revealed to be Matilda Meadows. McCredden recalls his wild past, doing ‘shrooms with Mr Squiggle in Rippon Lea and enjoying the “giant gang bang” of the 1970s. The night before the body is found, he remembers hearing Skyhooks’ song Living in the 70s and a sudden shout around midnight; a male voice, gruff and hoarse. 30-year-old director Bradley Champion appears (he is making the show they’re working on – Underbelly Redux: Chopper Read v Phryne Fisher and Jack Irish). McCredden had been to play Roger Rogerson and Matilda was to play the prostitute with the heart of gold. Champion reveals he’s making a true crime podcast.
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Champion announces he’s recording interviews under the title Matilda: Who Bloody Killed Her? He says McCredden is the prime suspect. Champion says whomever finds Matilda’s missing silver sandal will find the killer. In Matilda’s dead fingers is a rolled-up note reading: ‘And then there were none …’ Island deputy manager De Kock announces a huge storm is coming and police have asked him to round up everyone. Maya shows no concern at Matilda’s death and reveals her husband once had sex with Matilda.
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Maya’s husband, a successful director, is revealed to have slept with everyone and even tried it on with McCredden once. Maya was also notoriously unfaithful. McCredden recalls more detail from the night before: breaking glass, a bullhorn, a man’s voice shouting, then the same voice arguing with a woman – something about a phone call. Engelbrecht summons everyone to the Pandanus Lounge. Champion says everyone is a suspect. De Kock has been mixing cocktails. Suddenly cinematographer Dario collapses to the ground. Greer shouts that he’s dead. McCredden sniffs his glass: “bitter almonds”.
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Champion accuses McCredden of tampering with Dario’s body. McCredden spies what looks like a receipt in Dario’s top pocket. McCredden tries to punch Champion. Maya pulls him away, saying she knows McCredden is not the killer: “you simply don’t have the balls for it”. De Kock has temporarily disappeared. Champion says De Kock slipped out while they were distracted by Dario’s death. De Kock suddenly reappears, soaking wet from the storm, saying booby birds are falling from the sky. McCredden decides to take on the investigation of the murders, telling De Kock to get him a pen, a notebook and access to everyone’s schedule.
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Champion’s mother, in her mid-50s but deliberately looking older, is reminiscing of her youth as Maria Annie Champers, musical theatre wannabe. She was cast as Evita and one night met a dark-haired American producer who promised to make her a Broadway star. Maria falls pregnant and the producer disappears. Baby Bradley grows up to be a successful TV director but Mother convinces him to take this ridiculous island job, hoping he’ll quit and return to theatre and become a star in his own right. Mother recalls on the night of Matilda’s death she stumbled on a discarded silver shoe and kicked it away.
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It’s the morning before Matilda’s body is found and writer Greer, 25, is hungover in his room. He recalls how Matilda – who had become famous for bikini selfies and for her “frankness and pride as an Aboriginal actress” – had knocked on his door the night before. The pair got drunk before assistant director Zoe bashed on the door, ordering them to social-distance. Matilda stumbled out of the room, making a FaceTime call as she went. We return to the morning, when Zoe knocks at Greer’s door again to announce Matilda is dead.
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That night the group begins discussing what’s happened. McCredden and Maya flirt. Champion is annoyed as De Kock and Kamikaze Kev appear to be deferring to Engelbrecht, who wants everyone to sleep in the bar. Champion wants everyone to sleep in their own rooms. Champion is humiliated when Mother steps in to take his side. All agree to return at 8am. Zoe goes to her room alone and lies awake regretting interfering in Greer and Matilda’s party the night before. In the morning Zoe walks to the Pandanus lounge to find only seven people remaining.
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The missing character is De Kock, a professional assassin whose last hit was 18 years ago. He’s gone for a walk on the beach to muse about his kills, including the plane crash he engineered to kill South Africa’s cricket captain. De Kock is now on the island hiding out from bookies and politicians. He recalls scenes from the night before: McCredden failing to consummate his desire for Maya, while in another room Mother screamed abuse at Bradley. De Kock looks up at the horizon, where a speedboat zooms in with the storm behind it.
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Maya is in the lounge reflecting on the night before, when she acquiesced to a “charity shag” with McCredden. After his erectile failure, McCredden lost his temper and sobbed an apology. Suddenly De Kock bursts through the door, rambling in an accent that lurches from South African to Urdu to Tuvaluan: “They’ve landed.”
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De Kock considers killing McCredden and decides not to bother. De Kock reveals he was hired by Engelbrecht to run island security to “prevent any external elements” from infiltrating. Someone knocks at the door. De Kock tells them not to answer. The doors open and reporter Becky Cummerbund from Celebrity Central enters, followed by a cameraman.
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Becky Cummerbund is revealed to be really Rebekah Chung, ambitious for Hollywood. She tells Champion she’s going to solve the crime. Becky says in a whisper only Bradley and Mother can hear: “Matilda told me what he did to her. And she told me what you did to save his skin.” Mother attempts to punch Becky but hits McCredden. Becky recalls Matilda’s last email: “Just arrived, Sat next to McCredible (Not) on the plane. You’ll never believe what I overheard. This changes everything. People would kill to keep this quiet.”
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Engelbrecht takes his dog Chopper for a walk. We learn he bought his share in the island from Maya’s then-bankrupted husband. He smokes a cigar and thinks about his backpacker guests, some of whom took the “buzz package” involving drugs. Suddenly Chopper the dog emerges from the bushes with a silver sandal in his mouth. Mother appears. Engelbrecht realises his cigar has been poisoned. Engelbrecht attempts to fight back with a blade hidden in his swagger stick. Engelbrecht says the stick was stolen on the night the outsiders arrived on the island. “I know who stole it and who left blood …” he says, before dying.
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Kev finds Engelbrecht’s body and recalls his own backstory: his real name is Gilbert Kevinour and he is haunted by the memory of his mother’s abandonment during a screening of The Sound of Music. Kev/Gilbert was a military chef who met Engelbrecht in special forces – before Kev wound up as a chef on Australian film and TV sets, where he made Special Smoothies packed with illicit substances, which accidentally caused organ failure among several actors – and once nearly killed Matilda Meadows. Engelbrecht brought him to the island to hide out, but Matilda recognised Kev and made a late-night call begging for special smoothies for herself and someone else. In the present moment, Kev sniffs the poisoned cigar that killed Engelbrecht and recognises the toxin.
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McCredden gets drunk because his prime suspect, Engelbrecht, is now dead. He suspects Champion. Coming over all James Bond, McCredden goes to investigate the droning generator and finds a mysterious cable that leads to a high steel fence topped with razor wire. Behind the fence is a concrete bunker with antennae and a satellite dish. Inside is a smiling Matilda Meadows. She says: “Hello John McCredden. We have been expecting you. What took you so long?”
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Inside the bunker is the Australian Film and TV Diversity Working Group, which proceeds to present McCredden with a list of demands for reform. Matilda tells McCredden she staged her death to get his attention, and got a morgue to make a rubber corpse of herself. Matilda says Maya helped her because she wants more chances for older actors. “She wants to be the next Bachelorette”.
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McCredden awakens – that was all a dream. The diversity lecture, the bunker, the James Bond fantasy – everything. We flash back to last year’s Australia Day, when McCredden and Matilda found themselves at the same “lefty, lovey” party. McCredden is revealed to be a “secret Tory” who despises progressive media types but reserves the right to ogle their bottoms. He was enraged when Matilda caught him leering at a young woman at the party. Back to the island in the present day: Matilda’s still dead. MCredden killed her – or at least so he believes.
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McCredden finds an iPhone pic of himself with his arm around Matilda, taken in his bungalow on Matilda’s last night alive. In the photo they’re both holding a drink McCredden doesn’t remember having. McCredden thinks back to the last time he was blackout drunk – a 2014 party when he boasted to Ian Thorpe about his swimming prowess – a story Jack Thompson now tells around the campfire at Arnhem Land’s annual Garma Festival. Back in the present day, McCredden finds under his bed a bloody, wooden-handled knife.
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Henry the cameraman and reporter Becky Cummerbund have been ordered home to cover a big story: Australia Zoo heiress Bindi Irwin is about to go into labour. As Henry and Becky board a seaplane, Becky vows to return and solve the murders. As the aircraft takes off, Henry looks down at the island and sees hidden cameras in the trees. He sips one of Kamikaze Kev’s smoothies. He looks down at his feet to see a bloodied wooden handle jutting from his backpack. Suddenly the plane explodes.
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Frank Churchill, Maya’s husband has been hiding in a cave on the other side of the island all along. He came to protect Maya from the threat of exposure for her use of blackface in a long-forgotten movie, in which Matilda had played her baby. Frank is terrified Matilda will use her new fame to ‘cancel’ Maya, and we learn Frank arranged the seaplane explosion to stop the story getting out. Suddenly Maya appears and kills Frank, walking away silently.
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Writer Greer rushes to the room of assistant director Zoe and begs her to flee the island with him to escape the killer/killers. Greer reveals Champion told him there were caves on the island he planned to use for filming, and they see cameras mounted on tree-trunks. The surf is too wild to escape tonight so they wait until dawn – but in the panic Zoe accidentally launches a marine flare at Greer’s chest, plunging him into the water. She attempts to save him and both drown.
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Back in the Pandanus Lounge, Champion announces Frank’s death. McCredden regrets never having shagged him. They go to the cave to retrieve Frank’s body. Kev reveals the island was the set of Temptation Island Seasons 7 and 8: Champion has tricked them into being in a reality show. Looking out to sea, the men see Greer and Zoe’s floating corpses and kneel together in grief – but Mother comes up the track and mistakenly thinks there’s a three-man sex act going on and her ‘Braddy’ will be caught by the cameras. In her haste she shoves Kev out of the way and he falls off the cliff to his death.
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Back at the resort McCredden convinces De Kock to flee with him on Engelbrecht’s yacht. De Kock wants to find his missing camera, and they follow the sound of show-tune music to find Maya holding the camera, on which there are photos of Frank and Engelbrecht receiving “a shipment”. She throws the camera into the jacuzzi. De Kock leaps in to get it and Maya kicks in a boom box, electrocuting De Kock. Terrified, McCredden sees a knife hidden in Maya’s kaftan. Maya says Matilda had to die because she knew about ‘our little side business … smuggling all kinds of things’. Bradley Champion appears and Maya slits his throat.
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Maya entices McCredden to her room on the promise of sex, which Maya endures but McCredden experiences as the best of his life. So good, in fact, that he dies of a heart attack. Mother bursts into the room, having found Bradley’s body, and attempts to strangle Maya, who grabs a heavy candle to defend herself. The murderer – we don’t know which woman – declares: “She’s finally gone”.
Booker Prize-winning novelist Tom Keneally is writing our final chapter right now. Come back to ohmatilda.com.au or the Summer Novel section on our app - or pick up the paper - on Saturday February 27 to find out whodunnit, and why.
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