ABANDONED. Australian POW with murder in mind

[Alan]

Hi booklovers
I’m looking to re-read a book I first read in the Readers Digest Condensed Book series maybe 40 years ago, and whose title and author I can no longer find. It’s set in a small Australian outback settlement immediately following WW2, and features a POW released from a Japanese concentration camp that saw the death of his best mate, the camp surgeon. Paul comes to his friend’s hometown ostensibly just to offer friendship and care, but his arrival in this small town stirs up all kinds of clarifying truths.
There is the hopelessness of a young woman’s unrequited love for an older married hen-pecked artist (Julian?) and her blindness to love closer at hand that Paul cleanly and clearly articulates. There’s a gentle love interest between Paul and another woman that seems to be where the book is going, before a climactic sideways jink. There’s also the mental illness of a delinquent boy (Martin) who is terrorising his mother. Paul addresses this with corporal punishment (the implication is that “if this had been done long ago perhaps he would have been alright” yes, it’s an old book!) Martin’s subsequent hatred for Paul alters the boy’s secret plan to use a hand grenade to murder his father when he returns: he begins to plan to revenge himself on Paul.
However, there is a far more sinister undercurrent in this visit that gradually reveals itself. I remember it as exceptionally well-written…that was forty years ago..and I’m looking forward to seeing whether it stands the test of time!)
His doctor-POW friend’s widow (? Marion?) had written to her captive husband telling him that she had met a new man, Howard. She had hoped that it did not reach him before he died: Paul tells her that it did. He does not tell her, however, that her husband had said on his deathbed, probably in malarial delirium, that he would rather strangle his children with his bare hands than surrender them to this Howard…and Paul has come to carry out what he imagines is his dying friend’s request. He tricks the children (John? and Libby) into hiding somewhere in the bush away from everyone else, so he can carry out what he imagines to be his dying friend’s last wishes: but while it is all unfolding Martin stalks Paul with his purloined hand grenade, muffs its delivery and ends up accidentally killing himself. The blast knocks Paul unconscious and brings him to his horrified senses: he confides in a wise older woman (Kitty?) his terrible plan and leaves the community, leaving Kitty with a sealed letter to be delivered to the children’s mother should he ever return: his fear is that the terrible tendrils of mental illness that led him to contemplate such evil may come back.
It’s highly likely that I’ve got some of the names, some of the details wrong…but I’d love to re-read the book, and can’t think of a way of finding it! I’ve scrolled through hundreds of Aussie authors, tried finding Condensed Book indexes online…to no avail.

Can anyone help?

[Kris]

Alan, please post a new comment if you're still looking for this book - or if you found it.

Alan (OP) was last active on the site in April 2020. Moving to Abandoned folder.