Broome Enigma, by Meryl Brown Tobin, is an Australian romantic suspense novel built around an immediately intriguing question: Who is Joe, and why was he left for dead with no memory of his identity? Artist Jodie meets him while creating a series of Broome paintings, and their growing attraction turns her working holiday into an amnesia mystery involving corrupt police, drug smugglers, and more than one attempt on their lives. Set in 1986, the story has an enjoyably old-school character. Clues are pursued through newspapers, photographs, phone calls, and face-to-face investigation, giving the romantic mystery a tactile quality that suits its steadily unfolding plot.

Broome is far more than a picturesque backdrop. Tobin fills the novel with Cable Beach, Chinatown, pearl luggers, dramatic tides, cemeteries, cyclones, and the Shinju Matsuri Festival. Jodie’s work as an artist makes all that local color feel connected to the story because she’s constantly observing the landscape and thinking about how to capture it. The book also acknowledges Broome’s multicultural history and the wartime experiences that shaped the town. Once the action shifts to Perth, the Australian crime fiction elements become more prominent, but Broome remains the emotional center of both the romance and the mystery.

Jodie is warm, capable, and endearingly direct, whether she’s painting, rescuing Joe, evading a tail, or challenging his latest theory. Joe’s gradual transformation into Detective Constable Marc O’Connors gives the book its most distinctive tension. Jodie has fallen for the vulnerable man he became after losing his memory, while Marc struggles to accept that version of himself. Their repeated debate over whether Joe and Marc are the same person turns the amnesia romance into a story about identity as well as attraction. The frequent internal commentary and playful exchanges create a chatty, traditional romantic-suspense style, while Tiffany, Ryan, Barney, and Helena add humor, companionship, and useful energy around the central couple.

The latter half develops into a lively crime thriller filled with surveillance, disguises, kidnappings, undercover operations, secret passages, and confrontations with corrupt officers. Even during the busiest action, the book keeps returning to Jodie and Marc’s emotional problem, which gives the ending a satisfying sense of personal resolution alongside the solved case. Broome Enigma will appeal most to readers who enjoy Australian romantic suspense, an identity mystery, scenic travel fiction, and a slow-burn love story told with plenty of danger and affectionate banter. It’s an eventful, good-natured novel whose strongest feature is the way romance, mystery, and the Broome setting remain closely entwined.

Pages: 212 | ASIN ‏ : ‎ B0CHWLFTSZ