“ Sonya Jn.Baptiste’s hammer came down on its plaque with a hitherto unknown ferocity. ‘Order in the courtroom!’ ”

 A local judge was presiding over what was undoubtedly one of the most historic cases ever witnessed by citizens of the small Caribbean island of St. Cecilia. It’s a hearing in the murder charge preferred against a touring white American couple, the victim, a black water taxi driver and presumed sex playmate of the female Hazel Cunningham.

The plot is unassumingly typical, and readers from both sides of the author’s suspected target audience—travelling and foreign interests, as well as others professionally familiar with ‘adventure’ tourism in the islands—would have heard of a case  of visiting Caucasians in quest of an exotic experience of native culture and sexual exploits, both of which are easily accessed particularly if the subject  is inclined to make a show of his / her financial endowments. In Rum Justice, not only is the hunter’s hook well baited, but narrator tells us that she is armed “with a strong sex appeal that she radiated like an unguided missile”.

Michael and Hazel Cunningham, a wealthy husband and wife pair, are spending a leg of their vacation on St. Cecilia in the Eastern Caribbean, berthed offshore aboard their luxury yacht, the Footloose. Not uncharacteristically, the Cunninghams declare their love for the country and its people, but  struck by the level of deprivation on the island, express a desire to launch a charity to fund the education of its youth. Unfortunately, the rum guzzling bouts and promiscuous escapades of wife Hazel with native yachties and beach bums foils that prospect, and instead lands the couple in dire straits with the law when the affair between the woman and her paramour presumably hits the rocks. The loverboy goes missing and eventually is fished out of the sea along the nearby coast, his face partly chewed up by fish, a ghastly sight. The Cunninghams are immediate suspects, not least for the cozy relationship between him and Hazel. The story is about the anger of the deceased’s relatives and of an entire native community, and the events leading up to the crowd-pleasing arrest and pre-trial of both Cunninghams and the predictable outcome. Predictable, because justice is more erratic than not in these islands.

Rum Justice, although primarily a commentary on a highly emotive and even internationally publicised murder and subsequent trial of the suspects, is also a deceptively frank portrayal of an island civilization, of a genre that is seemingly both  anthropological and philosophical in nature. And at risk of sounding extreme, one might even be led to adjudge this work as the template by which some ‘outsiders’ assess these islands.

Set against the backdrop of a Caribbean island the author clearly places within the locus of the Eastern Caribbean—a region whose profile and strategic endeavours combine to lure particularly North American and European tourists to their shores—the writing leaves virtually no room for conjecture as to its identity as anyone who is barely familiar with this ‘paradise’ destination can locate it as St. Lucia. Further, I had little difficulty pinpointing every venue, every named watering hole—even the judge and newspaper publisher, secondary personages in the cast—as if I were watching a live show. That is to suggest that the writer made little effort to conceal the identity of most of her characters. Whether this is a flaw or not is a function of whether a reader favours mystery over identifiable characters and locations.

The writer, who by training is a social scientist, must have found it difficult, or perhaps unnecessary, to separate socio-historical fact from fiction, she having written extensively for several local journals and tourist magazines; for the latter, geography and social history interests have been her primary focus. In fact, as the story unfolds, one gets the sense of reading a researcher’s critique, or the psycho-social analysis, of a people and its culture. While never losing sight of her ostensible mission of recounting the facts of the crime—whether Riley ‘Smiley’ Jackson, the murder victim, was indeed killed by one or other of the Cunninghams; was the evidence sample tampered with, and by whom? was the eventual arrest and custodial restriction of the prime suspects merely an exercise in public relations?— the author cross-compares native culture and her own Australian upbringing, as well as black and white, developed world and ‘backwater’ people mentality, a point expounded later in this review.

Though set in contemporary times, one is apt to get the impression of an earlier period, judging by some of the images in parts of the narrative. There’s the description of “awakening in a house with wooden floor” and “mosquito net tied to the ceiling” (p.33); “blocks of old shingled houses with roadside balconies” (p.92); and  Emmaus “folding the piece of batik cloth that served him for a sheet” (bedsheet, that is), and packing “the piece of foam on which he slept”. All of these are nostalgic remembrances more reminiscent of the late 50’s and  early 60’s. In any event they have the coincidental effect of painting a quaint and prosaic existence.

Amidst the unfolding drama of trying to unravel the grimy details of a whory white female’s slackness in the face of an accommodating or impotent drunkard husband; assembling the obvious or incompetently undetected pieces of incriminatory evidence; or contemplating the aloofness of Michael Cunningham even with the noose increasingly tightening around his and his wife’s necks, the narrative moves as if compelled to portray a culture of backwardness. Everyone is either perversely corrupt, crooked or sloppy. In a revelatory jab, author has no less a character than the local police Inspector Neill admitting, ‘What’s wrong with you? Is slackness that’s keeping this country back, you know. All the resources in the world and a lack of will power to achieve the best we can. That’s the problem…’ (p.112). In another unveiled swipe, the narrator follows Inspector Neill as he searches the galley of the Footloose for evidence and ‘systematically worked his way through a large collection of foodstuffs…all sorts of exotic wares…Most products were extremely hard to come by on the island, unless the local supermarket accidentally received a shipment intended for elsewhere. In that case, the pate de foie gras might even be cheaper than tinned catfood’ (p.121).

In this environment of backwardness, don’t expect that on St. Cecilia crimes are as easily solved as in the developed metropolitan lands of the narrator or the Cunninghams—no breath analysers, no DNA test, and fingerprinting is done  unscientifically. Tracing blood to a suspect? —‘In a developed country, sure,’ Nicky said in a clear, hard voice. ‘With a DNA test. But it’s expensive and they don’t have the equipment for that down here…so if you kill someone in a drunk-driving accident and refuse the blood test, you’re free and clear to go home’ (p.82/3). Police work is pathetically outdated. And as for integrity, a young police officer surprises narrator when he makes available to her a copy of the confidential report on the murder suspects. “Luke bestowed a pitying look on him, took the envelope and passed it on to me…Holy shit! That’s confidential police stuff…I wondered what Conny and Luke had on him to make him pinch official documents”(p.158). In St. Cecilia, even regular citizens and one’s friends are dishonest and give shoddy work, as exemplified by Bro. Moses, a church-going Christian employed by narrator to mount a fence. Lara reported, ‘He’s a kinda feller: he does like to cut corners.’ And ‘this afternoon he gave five poles to the feller over there in exchange for a bucket of cashew nuts.’ After narrator had listened to the litany of misdeeds by Bro. Moses, she let out in exasperation, ‘Fuck them, Lara. I’ll get my own back on Moses’ (pp.245/8). She was intent on showing that though she was a woman she was not a complete walkover. That strong sense of independent womanhood is portrayed elsewhere in the narration to good effect.

A notable aspect of Dr. Harmsen’s writing is the common features with which she clothes most of the native characters. Almost everyone sports Rastafarian dreadlocks, or is shabbily attired, or in some other way clumsy—wearing  oversized sneakers; their trousers suspending precariously halfway down their waists. Of one she says, “I guessed the sneakers were his and he had borrowed the rest” (Ch.27). In an earlier citation one notes the ambivalence in their relationship when narrator (Claire) and her friend, Nicky, in a show of support, buy ‘unsavoury’ food from a Rasta friend, but after eating when they return home, Nicky says to Claire, ‘I need to drink some Pernod to kill off the germs’ (Ch.19). Notwithstanding, it would be true to say that the writer connects well with her characters, and identifies genuinely with their cause. No one enjoys that sympathy more than Conny, girlfriend to a brother of the deceased. She is the one  who shows the greatest emotion at the hearing, and is a key informant and ally of the narrator as she gathers material for her journalistic opportunism, always a step ahead of the tardy and incompetent police.

Rum Justice offers insights into the way the bunch of American newspaper and magazine journalists who fly in to cover the case view the inhabitants of St. Cecilia, and reflects the self-righteous persona of American culture. At the height of the episode, the US media place the island “on a par with fundamentalist Iran, terrorist Libya and Mafiosi Russia” (p.347). American arrogance is aptly captured in this statement by a press aficionado, ‘Nobody here ever expected a Caribbean court would dare to make American citizens stand trial for murder’ (p.285). Occasionally, however, narrator takes a stand for the natives: “Ornella wanted to say something but I cut her short, raising my voice. ‘But I can tell you one thing: I’m happy these people are being made to stand trial. Because it’s flippin’ presumptuous to think you can just turn up somewhere and act however the hell you please without a thought for the local population’ ” (p.287). In another vexatious mood, she tells a pontificating American prober, ‘And yes, sexual infidelity in men is very much accepted here. Expected, even. But that doesn’t mean people don’t have moral sensitivities’ (p.312).

Finally, on the basis of the evidence presented —or not—Judge Sonya Jn.Baptiste offers her ruling. The somewhat repentant American media are now willing to admit that after all, even the backwater St. Cecilian judicial system is capable of dispensing justice. But it is Hazel Cunningham who strikes the final fatal blow, demonstrating her  hypocrisy and exceeding arrogance: she and her husband had such great plans for those poor people, they had no idea they would throw them in jail for that. In a vindicatory disclosure to the media upon her return home, the vicious adulterer says, ‘If we had known the level of corruption that exists, we would never have gone anywhere near these Caribbean islands.’ She punctuates, ‘That’s why I am happy to give this interview: so other Americans can realise the hidden dangers in these places’ (p.384).

The controversial slant of its content notwithstanding, Rum Justice offers good reading. The writer’s interrogative skills are outstanding, her understanding of legal procedures exceptional, and her prior journalistic and investigative engagements would have served her in good stead. The writing is fluent and consistent with the maturity of the intellect (behind the pen) that taps at the keyboard.

Yet, for all that has been said, there is the lingering perception that this debut crime novel that doubles up as social commentary, is only a preview of a broader canvas in the making. To get the unabridged version, one has to travel into the deep recesses of the writer’s mind. Or better, wait for the publication of her next book.