Liane Moriarty The Last Anniversary

The Last Anniversary

Liane Moriarty

Harper, May 2006, $14.95

ISBN: 0060890681

In 1932 Scribbly Gum Island, Australians Alice and Jack Munro vanish without a trace leaving behind their infant daughter found by Connie and Rose Doughty. The case became internationally known as "The Baby Munro Mystery" and soon led to the tiny island becoming a tourist spot especially due to the efforts of the sisters.

Over the next seven decades the Doughty family has made a fortune off the Enigma of the Baby Munro Mystery. However, now the matriarch Connie dies ending her iron control of the purse strings. The family members quickly war with one another ending the fragile peace that Connie fostered on everyone. Rose may still be alive, but is too much the romantic dreamer to enforce a code of ethics on the family. Though she only met Aunt Connie a few times, Sophie Honeywell, who ended her relationship with Scribbly Gum native Thomas Gordon, inherits her home. Sophie moves to escape Sydney though she fears that seeing Thomas will remind her that she let go of her probable soulmate, but instead deals with five generations of eccentric acrimonious kin.

Though Liane Moriarty endows her vast cast with varying personalities and physical traits readers will need a scorecard to keep track of who's who, which can become overwhelming. Still this is a rich complex tale containing numerous well written subplots involving aging, financial dictatorship, postpartum depression, hetero and homo sexual relationships, amidst many others as each player has a major issue. The tie that brings everyone and all the subplots together remains the Enigma baby abandonment that will have the audience hooked wondering what happened in 1932 that still impacts everyone today.

Harriet Klausner