In the prologue of Dilemma, Scobie is visiting his parents (who do not live in Sydney), when he is asked to investigate a homicide in their town. A beauty shop operator is murdered in the middle of the night. She was seen earlier arguing with her estranged husband at a bar, and leaving there much later, alone, slightly inebriated. Neighbors that night saw her husband's car parked at the house. When morning came, he was gone. From all appearances it is an open and shut case and an APB is out for husband Ron Glazer. The only quirky thing is that her car had been wiped clean of fingerprints, as well as parts of the house.

A few years later, Scobie draws a high profile kidnapping case. The victim is a five-year-old model, named Lucybelle Vanheusen. A ransom note appears, and then the child is found dead, having been thrown off a very high cliff. Barbiturates are found within her system. The parents are less than cooperative when the police investigate. At this point, one has to wonder if there is anyone in the reading world who has not heard the facts in the JonBenet Ramsey case, and who would not see the obvious parallel here.

In the midst of the case, Ron Glazer is finally found living under an alias in a rural Australian community. Scobie brings him back to Sydney for trial. Malone and his female partner are involved with both cases simultaneously and Scobie is confident of his judgment as to guilt in both cases. Slowly that confidence begins to erode as his investigation continues.

Readers should be alerted to the fact that Dilemma is not a pure mystery. Cleary uses dialogue as a platform to critique current events. These events include the 2000 Olympics, ongoing race relations with the Aborigines, high fashion, in clothes and hair style, the film Titanic, MUA rallies and politics in the Asian world, sprinkled among lectures on English language word usage.

Some readers may find these references integrate the characters in the larger world picture and find that it enriches their reading. Others such as this reviewer may find them intrusive and distracting and often patronizing in tone, and didactic in delivery. Cleary uses the two parallel cases to compare families, touching on the Malones as well.

It seems that Cleary is yearning for an "Old Australia" just as I the reader am yearning for an "Old Scobie Malone" mystery. Still it is an interesting insight into current Australian thinking, at least on the author's part.

--Thea Davis