What the Light Reveals

Mick McCoy

Transit Lounge, $29.99

The year is 1954 and the anti-Communist witch-hunt mentality of the US has spread to the Melbourne lives of Conrad and Ruby Murphy. Conrad, an avowed Communist but neither lawbreaker nor spy, has been summoned to a Royal Commission in Sydney, at which he is hounded and misrepresented by a sensationalist press. Suddenly, although a qualified and skilled engineer, he is a man who cannot get a job in Australia. But there is one waiting for him in Moscow. After Conrad and Ruby have settled themselves and their two boys into new lives halfway round the world, cracks begin to appear in the family. This novel is a page-turner with some skilfully realised scenes and set pieces, especially the commission proceedings and the brilliant and breathtaking scene near the end, in the Russian dark and snow.