Secrets at Hanging Rock

The book takes a dual approach. One thread concerns events right after the picnic. Michael unfortunately is a prime suspect and he has to sit through an interrogation while the police, and the jury, try to find out just what happened. This is very rough on him. Also, the records of the previous investigation were destroyed in a fire.

The second threat is about an archaeological did at the rock that uncovers an area that has skeletons in it. One of them is a female who was pregnant since the bones of the fetus are also found. Two other female skeletons are found and one male skeleton.

(This is a point where the book is somewhat confusing. How did all of them end up in the same place at the same time? Did the girls and Miss Mc Craw enter the same space, find the skeleton of the guy and then get trapped? Why did they go into that cave-like space anyhow?)

Mary Wade is the archaeologist and Jo is an assistant and also her lover. (That they were lovers is fine but I think the sex scenes are not really necessary in this particular book.)

There's a lot of trouble for them as the local aborigine group tries to stop the excavation, claiming that the skeletons are their people (Yet it is firmly established in articles, etc, that the native peoples of that area consider it taboo to climb the rock because there are evil spirits there.)

Also, the local group opposes the fact that females are on the rock.

The way the team excavates the area is explained rather well and helps one to understand just how much work is involved in archaeology.

There's a romantic problem for Mary and Jo and, again, I don't consider it germane to this particular story.

Also, Mary does something which is basically is unethical as far as archaeological work goes.

It seems very possible that the female skeletons are the missing people but it's left unclear whether they really are or not. (If they're not the missing people, though, then how did the skeletons end up there? Where did they come from and why do they just happen to be where the others had disappeared? It basically has to be them; there is no other reasonable explanation.)


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