The Diemen Alexander by Marie Heitz

Title: The Diemen Alexander

Author: Marie Heitz

Genre: Crime, Mystery, Science Fiction

Publisher: Clan Destine Press

Published: 16^th October 2023

Format: Paperback

Pages: 316

Price: $32.95

Synopsis: When tender-hearted geeky teenage Luke rescues a lizard in a thunderstorm on kunanyi, he has no idea it will have a mind of its own.

Or eat quite so much. Or grow so fast. Or resemble Tasmania’s lost dinosaur.

Suddenly Alexander the lizard becomes an immensely valuable object, sought by cold-blooded and violent people.

Luke’s brains and compassion won’t be enough to protect Alexander – something his anarchic sister Gatta could have told him – not even with help from the fearsome Shona, paleogeologist and AFLW Goddess.

Meanwhile Alexander, teeth, claws and appetite, is growing, changing and learning to communicate.

Can Luke find his own ferocity and ruthlessness to counter the odds stacked against them?

A sci-fi romp through present day Hobart – featuring zoology, comparative anatomy and venture capitalism – that asks deeper questions about human responsibility towards animals, the earth and each other, and the truth that power goes to the person most prepared to wield it.

Marie Heitz‘s The Diemen Alexander is an adventure full of narrow escapes and fail-to-escapes, an XH Holden ute, shameful misuse of really excellent whisky, and a distressing amount of fast food.

*This book was sent to me for review by Sisters in Crime*

~*~

Luke is out in the Tasmanian bush during a storm when he discovers a lizard with a broken shell – little does he know what the lizard will bring into his life. Luke’s mother is often away, off in Sydney for work. She’s left Luke and his sister Gatta alone, with her brother Ty, who has his own ulterior motives throughout the novel. When Luke takes the lizard home, Gatta names him Alexander. Soon, Alexander is growing, and his presence is hard to hide – with less than savoury people seeing how valuable he is.

When Luke and Gatta are forced to ask for help, they speak to Professor Cantrell, and her assistant Shona, but Alexander grows and changes – turning into something that none of them could have imagined. He’s not your average lizard – he has unique ways of communicating as he grows and changes that hint at something more – a lost dinosaur or a link to something that shouldn’t exist but does. And Luke is finding himself – his bravery, his compassion, and what drives him in this young adult science fiction mystery set in the Tasmanian wilderness.

This inventive young adult novel is mostly science fiction, with a mystery within is Marie Heitz’s spectacular debut that incorporates adventure, zoology, comparative anatomy and venture capitalism – themes and ideas I haven’t seen in young adult literature before. It was interesting to see how Marie tackled these themes – I think I am used to fantasy, historical fiction or books that deal with issues that teenagers and young adults face more than how they respond to capitalism, so this book stood out as unique in my reading. I loved that it dabbled in stories about Tasmania’s unknown dinosaur and prehistory, and how it is linked to some of the animals around today, how evolution has helped them adapt, and most interestingly, I was intrigued that it played with the idea of a missing link between dinosaurs and dragons, and where a creature like Alexander fitted in.

Every character had their own motives in this novel, and I have to say that Shona and Bolly fast became my favourite characters. I found that they were interesting, and each character was well-rounded, and I think that worked for Ty, and I was never sure about him – it was as though I was being deliberately misled about him to mask who the real villain might have been. There were several mysteries at play – the biggest mystery was who Alexander was, what he really was and where he came from, with a secondary mystery bubbling along, though it was one that didn’t feel like a mystery at first – and perhaps it was meant to look as though it wasn’t – a way to distract the reader and the characters from something darker going on whilst attention was on Alexander.

I did enjoy the way dragons were created and shown in this book – I have read many books with dragons and there always seems to be a new way of using them – a different way that works for the novel. I also think the way the reveal of what Alexander really was worked well – it started out as innocuous but still with a few unknowns, and then just grows into what it becomes. This ensured – to me – that things weren’t too outlandish. It also allowed friendship and sibling love to flourish – showing that there are different ways to appreciate the people in your life – and this was a clever way to pull all of these things together.