Where would Australian crime fiction be without its small, isolated outback towns, complete with crime rates to rival Midsomer Murders? The likes of Chris Hammer, Jane Harper and Garry Disher have put such places on the map – and long may they continue to do so. But in a country as vast as Australia, there are plenty more writers hiding out in the eucalyptus.
One such is Shelley Burr, whose debut Wake won the CWA Debut Dagger in 2019. Her second standalone is Murder Town (known as Ripper in her native Australia), and from the outset it’s clear that this is an author determined to not let the worries of the ‘difficult second novel’ get to her.
The book opens in dramatic fashion, with 19-year-old Gemma working late on a stocktake in her grandmother’s craft and teashop in Rainier, a small town midway between Melbourne and Sydney. It should be a quiet time, counting skeins of wool; instead Gemma’s concentration is broken by the silhouette of a man banging on the shop door. He’s drunk and insistent and Gemma calls the local police who are there within minutes.
As she opens the door to the officer and the man, Gemma finally sees what made the intruder so keen on getting inside. He’s been stabbed and is bleeding profusely. Soon Dean Shadwell is dead on the shop floor – the latest victim of the Rainier Ripper.
Jump several years, and Gemma has married Hugh Guillory, the cop who was first at the scene on that fateful day. She is now running the business in a town that is gradually losing its identity – and commercial viability. So when a big city company proposes running guided tours of ‘Murder Town’ connected to the Rainier Ripper, opinions are divided.
Gemma can see both sides. Her coffee and craft shop is barely meeting the bills, but is it a good idea to bring it all back into the spotlight? After all, she is inextricably linked to the death of Dean Shadwell, and her one-time boyfriend, Vincent Tjibaou was another of the Ripper’s victims, his body found in the town fountain that marks the precise halfway point between Melbourne and Sydney.
The Ripper’s third victim was a woman who has never been identified, and her story has a vital part to play as everything unfolds – but things really come to a head when the would-be tour guide is murdered too, his body dramatically placed in the fountain that was Vincent’s last resting place in a copycat of the original modus operandi.
Murder Town is imbued with a sense of dark claustrophobia, with Gemma at its very heart. Small town insularity is cleverly conveyed in a book which creaks a little under the weight of a robust cast of characters. It’s the little tableaux that work best – the interactions between Gemma and her daughter Violet, for example and the scenes between Gemma and her husband Hugh that reveal the dysfunctional nature of their relationship.
Intertwined through it all, like a thread within a complicated tapestry, is the parallel story of Lane Holland, a private eye whose fall from grace sent him to jail – another closely guarded community with secrets lurking in every shadowy corner. His skills are in demand, and soon Lane and Gemma are linked in surprising ways. Although he’s a jailbird, the introduction of Lane adds a surprising breadth to this narrative.
In a book that ploughs some familiar furrows, Burr has the ability to deftly throw the odd spanner in the works and take the reader off on unexpected paths. The revelations, when they come, are conveyed at speed and will benefit from a second perusal, so prepare to slow down and pick up on the nuances. A tasty slice of Aussie crime, and one that deserves to be savoured.
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Harper Collins
Print/Kindle/iBook
£9.39
CFL Rating: 4 Stars
