Today marks the 100,000 word milestone in my novel Kundela. this means that I am nearing completion and while my characters are fighting for space in the story, I have to remain focused and work to the outline.


I expect that I will be ready to take my manuscript into first draft after the week end. so my goal for this week is to complete the last two chapters.


I have included a brief synopsis below:


KUNDELA                    Ancient bone of revenge

Synopsis

Kundela is a murder mystery set in the Finders ranges of South Australia. The year is 2009, it is late spring and the country is wilting from a seven-year drought. Our main characters the Gillespie family have lived on Warooka’s Well for three generations. The time line of events is short and the novel’s plot evolves over less than a six-month period.

Joe Gillespie finds a dead steer, it’s been clay-panned, (butchered on its skin) the animal was a favourite and in prime condition. It is not the first time that Joe has found remains of similar cattle thefts this year. However this event triggers a chain of events that introduce a few ghosts from the past, causing the Gillespies to re-evaluate their farming business and their lives.

The mystery unfolds as Joe and his wife Laura arrive home from a weekend in town to find their home and outbuildings supposedly trashed by a bikie gang.

They agree to search for the gang’s location before reporting the incident to police. Joe and Laura find their camp at Corroboree Bend in the Horseshoe, a geographical phenomena with only one entry point. From the safety of their lookout above the camp, they spy a young woman. She is naked, tied to a big Harley motorcycle, and about to be raped by a gang member, Joe and Laura are obliged to take action and rescue her.

At Police Headquarters in Adelaide, Joe learns someone other than the bikies have ruined his property. Their interview turns nasty as the abduction case against the bikies falls apart when the young woman dies. The police turn on them, and charge the couple with causing criminal damage.

Knowing his family is in danger, Joe breaks the Official Secrets Act by revealing his past to police.

 
Returning home, Joe finds his prized mob of cattle poisoned; they litter the creek and low scrub of the well paddock. He is puzzled. This is the place where he had found the clay-panned beast a week earlier. Angry, he races to the homestead only to find more poisoned animals, and even more devastation. Joe notices a flash of reflected light from a ridge above the homestead, and realises that he has driven into a trap. The story continues as he tries to out run his pursuers

The police suspect him of murdering his pursuers, and grill Joe again. He teams up with a Senior Constable from the Stock Squad and they set about capturing the fourth member of group targeting him. While discovering why this evil has visited their family, the Gillespies uncover uncomfortable secrets from their past.

 

Two stories of love wind though the text, the Love shared by Joe and Laura, along with some intimate moments shared by the other characters, and love of the land on where they live, and loyalty linking the people in Joe and Laura’s life together.

The story has a complex group of main characters and although a complete fiction has a sense of probability.