Review: Killing the Rabbit

Everyone in this book has issues.

Hannie Reynard, Aussie filmmaker, steals the idea for her directorial debut film from an old college associate and loses a major chunk of her funding to a scam artist and must deal with a flare-up of her Crohn’s disease all the while trying to figure out how to make her film and make the accountant happy. Mosson Ferret, accounting department head, despairs of ever getting the chance to make the film he dreamed of in college and lives with his own disease Alopecia as well as dealing the death of his mother. He decides to blackmail the young director by covering up her financial indiscretions so she will let him run the camera.

With an uneasy truce they work together on the documentary about the Rabbit Woman who can reabsorb an unwanted fetus back into her body at will. When the Rabbit Woman disappears, they interview the doctor who discovered this amazing ability and the missing woman’s boyfriend. They discover there are additional women in the study and that several of them have been murdered.

In the meantime we’re also following the story of the hired assassin, Trojan Carmichael and his difficulties with age, post-traumatic stress, career choices and family commitments. And why was he hired to kill the women on this list? We get a little insight into the drug company Forecaster who decides that the genetic mutation might just endanger his bottom line so he wants them all dead.

This book is based in Australia yet blends in a bit of Japanese and Chinese culture. What doesn’t make sense is this South African Pharmaceutical Company is only killing Australian women with this trait and there is no mention of any other women in any other country. Resorting to the murder of those seven women and the other “loose ends” seems a bit drastic without taking into consideration the possibility of hundreds of women worldwide who might have the same genetic mutation.

Other than that huge plot hole this is an excellent read. The author is very graphic in describing the medical issues as well as the few obligatory sex scenes. The story is engaging all the way through.

Debbie Walker