Joe Cinque’s consolation by Helen Garner

This the true story of Joe Cinque who died from a massive dose of Rohypnol and heroin given to him at a dinner party where the guests had been told that there was a plan to murder him. His girlfriend Anu Singh and friend Madhavi Rao were later charged with his murder and tried separately. Helen Garner follows the two trials, meeting the Singh family and becoming close to Joe Cinque’s mother. It is an intimate look at the justice system and how crime affects the people involved.

This an absorbing if at times traumatic reading experience. The reader gains a clear picture of the narcissistic Anu Singh and her friend the easily led Rao, and is caught up in the compelling personality of Mrs Cinque and her overwhelming grief. The book opens with an immensely powerful verbatim dramatisation of Anu Singh’s phone call asking for medical assistance for the dying Joe. The self-doubts that the author Helen Garner struggles with are sympathetically portrayed, as are her battles to understand a legal system that doesn’t necessarily provide justice.

The book leaves its reader with much to ponder about: the murder of a young man and the light sentencing given; the duty of care of the bystanders; whether a victim’s family can ever recover a normal life and the struggle of an author to make sense of a senseless killing.

Themes: Drugs, Murder.

Pat Pledger