Don’t Make a Fuss: It’s Only the Claremont Serial Killer

In 2020, after the longest and most expensive trial in Western Australian history, Bradley Robert Edwards was convicted of two of the Claremont Serial Killings, a series of unsolved murders that had haunted the state since the mid-1990s. But before he went to trial, before he started killing, Edwards violently assaulted a social worker while he was working on the telephone system at Hollywood Hospital. Not only did Edwards keep his job at Telstra, but he was convicted only of common assault for the attack, a minor charge that left him off the police radar during their desperate hunt for the sexual predator responsible for the Claremont murders.

Begun as way to deal with the resurgence of trauma after Edwards’ arrest, this memoir looks at the pressure on women to minimise and excuse certain behaviours in others, and demonstrates the devastating consequences of not making a fuss.

PRAISE FOR THE BOOK

‘This fact-deep memoir is a personal account of the battle between the psychological urge to be heard and a deeply conditioned reluctance to make waves. With pragmatic hindsight and attention to context, Davis’s tale cautions society against the dismissive treatment of women and the silencing of their voices.’ Writing WA

‘Don’t Make a Fuss is a brave and courageous memoir highlighting the ongoing culture of women’s unimportance and suppression.’ The Burgeoning Bookshelf