A police officer with something to prove, alongside her eccentric father travel to the small town and is determined to get to the bottom of whatever is going on. More direct than Disher, but really well written and plotted, with more twists and turns than many a country road! It takes the intervention from Jesse Redpath, a copper from a different district to step in and cause trouble. Jesse Redpath arrived in Canticle Creek to investigate the murder of Daisy Baker However, Jesse Redpath disagreed and started asking awkward questions that upset the community.

When at home in the Northern Territory of Kulara, Redpath works with Danny Jakamarra, an Aboriginal Community Police Officer. The loving description of the countryside and landscape was lyrical and I now feel that I know what a terrifying experience it would be to be trapped in the path of a bushfire. Jesse certainly was not without her faults and she, perhaps too regularly, got it wrong, but then was just a little too brilliant in some of her antics.

The language that resonates with the bush, that understands it, hears it, can read it, is a a treasure to read. If you’re a regular visitor to the blog then you may be aware that I adore Australian crime fiction and I’m always on the lookout for talented Australian authors to add to my ‘must read’ list.

As it is again with Jesse Redpath, and her belief in a young man who deserved better than the dismissive assumptions of those that didn't know him, didn't try to understand him, and were more than happy to use him as a convenient scapegoat, and a young woman whose death deserved a lot more than the cursory investigation undertaken. 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. The plot is well written with other memorable characters, moving along at a good pace with increasing tension as further deaths occur and Jesse herself becomes a target. She becomes involved in a murder investigation in country Victoria after a young man, Adam, she knows from NT is the main suspect. The setting is recognisably Australian, Hyland’s prose effortlessly evokes the baking hot weather, and varied landscape of rural Victoria.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. When Adam's wrecked car is found a kilometre from Daisy's body, the whole town assumes it's an open-and-shut case.