A cracking read!

 

 ⭑⭑⭑⭑⭑ Murder Town/Ripper provided an excellent start to 2024 in the form of a gripping, thoughtful, multifaceted Aussie crime thriller. If you were lucky enough to have read Wake, you will already be familiar with Lane Holland who finds his freedom curtailed after the previous novel. All other characters in this novel are new to the reader. So, while Wake isn't a hard and fast prerequisite, reading it first will put the facts of Lane's backstory in better light.

Shelley Burr is a cracking great writer and I happily add her to my 'must read' Aussie authors list alongside Chris Hammer and Jane Harper, to name a couple. She's a dab hand at the onion-effect of a mystery within a mystery and peoples her novels with well constructed characters the reader can engage with. I found the population of Rainier, and the past events that make the town newsworthy, wholly plausible. It is a town with a painful past trying to find relevance, and a revenue stream, going forward with conflicting views how best to achieve that. A murder in the town changes everything, though, and refreshes long buried tensions and trauma. The parallel plot lines of happening in Rainier and Lane's intersect rather well fuelling some intriguing drama. I highly recommend this novel and the escape it affords into a warmer climate during this chilly British winter. Enjoy!