This new thriller is the ultimate cautionary tale for the digital age

CRIME
Click
Sarah Bailey
Allen and Unwin, $34.99

Tellingly, Melbourne-based author Sarah Bailey’s latest thriller opens with an online exchange as a young woman tries to contact her missing friend after a party. The attractive Lyra Makris, with her own cooking segment on YouTube, has gone missing. Her former boyfriend denies all knowledge suggesting “maybe she lost her phone, she’s pretty good at doing that”.

The following day, a gruesome photo of Lyra’s body with the caption “victim #2” is sent to Melbourne’s largest newspaper from a source describing themselves as The Photographer. Given that a murdered Swedish backpacker has already been identified as #1, the setup appears clear. There’s a serial killer on the prowl targeting vulnerable young women. Or is there?

Click is an ambitious thriller reintroducing podcaster Oli (Olive) Groves whom we met in Bailey’s previous book The Housemate. It grapples with a number of pressing contemporary issues including violence against women, cybercrime, sexting and the role of the media in all of the above. It’s quite an agenda, building towards a thrilling but confronting conclusion.

Oli’s moved on in the last five years, setting up her own company, Newsday, with business partner, T. J. It’s now 2020 and their podcast is building an audience as they report on the newsworthy happenings of the day. These include the spread of the Wuhan virus in China, although Oli’s got an even more immediate problem, a diagnosis of breast cancer, which she doesn’t want to divulge. This may be her way of retaining a modicum of control, although she understands such a prognosis entails “surgery, chemo, radiotherapy, review, assess, repeat”.

Such is the backdrop for a series of critical events presented from two different perspectives, that of Oli and that of rookie Detective Constable Pen (Penelope) Kibbs. Like Oli, Pen is struggling to keep focus and is clearly suffering from PTSD, having recently dealt with some tragic family cases. Pen’s closest companion is her loyal bulldog, Elliot, who keeps watch as she self-medicates with wine in the bath while engaging in her own risky internet activities on random video chat site Chatroulette.

It’s a neat detail, illustrating the ways in which everyone here is enmeshed in an online world that may or may not be a safe place. When it comes to Oli’s podcast, she and T. J. have an agreement that they will only report the news the way they would want it to be reported “if it were one of their loved ones”. It’s a fine ethical stance and may well be one of the reasons their podcast is so successful. It’s either that or Oli’s husky voice.

But, as Click suggests, the police and those who work in the media are up against something darker and much more destructive than dodgy ethical standards - misogyny on a distressing scale. As Pen watches Lyla’s chirpy YouTube video, Quick Cooks with Mak, she is infuriated by the knowledge that the killer has stolen this young woman’s future. There then follows a reflective passage suggesting that while the gender gap may be closing, and men may be sharing more of the domestic responsibility, the wearying reality is that it is still men who commit gross acts of terror, “Not all men, but enough for most women to feel a constant thrum of low-level vigilance”. This is not news.

While everyone wants to address this issue, including the fictional female premier of Victoria, Oli receives a call from a former lover whose adolescent twin daughters have been caught up in a sexting scenario that threatens their wellbeing. He wants Oli to do a podcast series in the hopes that media attention might provoke some policy changes.

With Australia’s recent ban on social media for teenagers under 16, one might assume that this has already happened. However, as anyone with any experience of the online world already knows, it’s the wild west out there and the invention of those seeking to circumvent the boundaries is limitless.

These are the scary truths at the heart of Click, which taps into the kind of anxieties that should be concerning us all. It’s a compelling but sobering read.

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