The rural crime fiction wave continues with this brilliant new arid drama.’ - Australian Women's Weekly Things were going well it seemed, with Adam and Jesse’s father, they shared a common interest in art. The rural crime fiction wave continues with this brilliant new arid drama.’ ― Australian Women's Weekly This author has been on my radar for his Emily Tempest series, but this recent release (a standalone) is the first of his novels I've read. I'll be moving Diamond Dove up my TBR to read soon. Blazey Best was a great choice of narrator for this audiobook. Seems like Nash has enemies. And what looks like a close knit community might just be cover for dark secrets.

Jesse was told that the evidence against Adam was clear and that the case was fairly conclusive, but after reading all the police reports, she just wasn’t convinced; She knew this boy, and didn’t believe that he was capable of these crimes…nor was her father convinced. When young repeat offender Adam Lawson is brought before the magistrate yet again, Jesse steps up to convince the judge to release him into the care of her father, whose influence Jesse hopes can guide the lad.Jesse Redpath has a new job in a new town, Satellite – the stormy weather that greets her first few days on the new beat seems like a sign for what’s to come. A local has died in what seems like an accident, but Jessie isn’t so sure that ‘accident’ wasn’t planned. All evidence seems to point to Nash, but Jessie’s not sure about that either. Change plays an important role too. Nadia wants to change her life; Sam suddenly broadens his artistic horizons so late in life and Dom wants to redevelop the area to boost the local economy. At the same time there are those resistant to change and what it entails, the logging that scars the landscape and building work that destroys natural flora and fauna. Daisy Baker’s love of nature is clear from her artwork and activism, her murder was not the senseless crime it first appears. Seemingly disparate elements all skilfully woven into a storyline that is cautionary and modern but also with a rich vein of old-fashioned power and greed running through it. Getting up the nose of," from what I saw of the detective’s reaction.’ said Possum. ‘He sure as hell didn’t want you there.’ Trying to help likeable young tearaway Adam Lawson find a better future, Northern Territory police woman, Jesse Redpath convinced a judge to suspend his sentence provided he took a job at the local roadhouse and a room at her father’s house nearby. With her father being a well-known artist, she also hoped he would encourage Adam to take his obvious artistic talent more seriously. However, a week later Adam had run away, following a woman he met to Victoria and three months after that Jesse heard he had died in a car crash after murdering a woman called Daisy Baker and stealing her car. Knowing this didn’t sound like the Adam she knew, Jesse and her Dad headed to Canticle Creek, the small Victorian town where Adam had been living to find out more about what happened.

TBH the book was completely other than what I had expected. Jesse Redpath encourages a judge to give a petty criminal another chance and he is released into the care of her father. Only days later he runs away and shortly after that is believed to have4 committed a murder in a town in another part of Australia. Jesse travels to this town to try and clear Adam's name. Jesse Redpath is an interesting detective to spend time with, facing up to sexism and the walls put in front of a woman detective, especially one investigating a case outside her jurisdiction. A second outing would be welcome if Hyland has a mind for it. She has great intuition, a strong sense of what’s right and is a savvy detective. She’s also very down to earth and easy to like. The time she spends with her father is a treat – a grumpy old curmudgeon with softer edges than he’d care to admit, very proud of his daughter but not keen to let on. Their relationship plays into the story nicely. In the midst of a scorching Australian summer, a policewoman, Jesse Redpath, finds herself outside of her jurisdiction. She’s trying to find out whether the local police’s initial conclusions are true: that Adam, someone she believed in and vouched for, has just murdered a woman and killed himself. This investigation will lead her to the discovery of many local secrets… and straight into a literal inferno. As the temperature soars, and the ground bakes, the wilderness surrounding Canticle Creek becomes a powderkeg waiting to explode.

Praise

Full of questions, Jesse travels to the area of the crash, just to make sure what local police say happened is what really went down – and that she didn’t just let a murderer run free to Victoria. What she finds in Canticle Creek are a whole lot more questions, along with breathtaking surrounds, talented artists, nosy teenagers on horses, drug dealers, roadside assaults, blazing fires – well, you get it. It’s everything you need for a rural police thriller, and a hell of a lot more, too. They decide to go, in spite of the fact both are uncomfortable in big crowds. No wonder. (I love all these hyphenated descriptions.)

Award winning Australian author Adrian Hyland makes a return to the publishing scene with Canticle Creek, an evocative and tense crime fiction novel.Fire is never far from people’s minds and lingers as a threat throughout the book until Hyland uses his knowledge and experience to bring its dangers vividly and viscerally to life. But through Jesse’s descriptions, Hyland also brings the landscape to life. After driving through a “dust tumbled” landscape where the gravel road glows “like a ribbon of magnesium”, Jesse is brought to a small waterhole: Published by Ultimo Press https://ultimopress.com.au/ @ultimopress (an imprint of Hardie Grant Publishing) https://www.hardiegrant.com/au/books @HardieGrant As the temperature soars, and the ground bakes, the wilderness surrounding Canticle Creek becomes a powderkeg waiting to explode. All it needs is one spark. Honestly I found this a melting pot of twisting narrative almost in the style of a cosy mystery - only this time, rather than the local baker or shopkeeper, it is the supposedly professional police woman who jumps from one suspect to another almost after each hot drink that she has.