Bondi, 1939–1944. Dorothy ‘Dot’ Campbell teaches the children of the neighbourhood while the war empties the streets of their men, her husband James among them: first home, then away, then missing. She has no badge and no agency, only a classroom of children who see everything and a habit of keeping quiet account of the things that will not add up.
Each book brings one small, bloodless puzzle — vanishing pets, a stolen comforts tin, forged ration books, a coded page in the ordinary post — solved fairly and gently, with the great war kept at the edge of the page. Warm home-front mysteries in the vein of Jacqueline Winspear and AJ Pearce: no murder, no body, and kindness usually hiding in plain sight.
The Books
Book 1
The Missing Pets
Freddie Nash cried at his desk on a Wednesday because Chum didn't come home, and by week's end there are two dogs missing and a schoolyard comparing notes the grown-ups won't. Dot listens to the children.
Not yet on sale
Book 2
The Last Summer
Mr Corrigan has gone to be a soldier and his class is Dot's now: thirty-two children, a tin for the child who lost her lunch, and a pup arriving inside James's coat. She means to keep the year ordinary.
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Book 3
The Forged Books
A slate breaks between the third and fourth rows and the room has its answer before it has a reason. Elsewhere a boy has stopped opening his lunch tin. Dot, who marks sums all day, would rather check the working.
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Book 4
The Quiet Homefront
A battered suitcase stands outside the milliner's, and by evening there is a story attached to it. Dot has watched this street decide about a newcomer before, and knows how little the deciding costs it.
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Book 5
The Code Room
Two exercise books, two rows apart, carry the same small marks down their margins, and the staffroom has already said cheating. Above the corner shop, a stranger in a good coat is teaching Dot to read a cryptic crossword.
Not yet on sale
Book 6
The Homecoming
A boy Dot taught is posted missing, and a man home from the war stands at the corner-shop counter saying he fell right beside him. Owen Kellow's family would like to know more than that.
Not yet on sale
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