The parched landscape of the Australian outback has provided a compelling backdrop for many a crime novel in recent years. Think of The Dry by Jane Harper, Gabriel Bergmoser’s The Hunted, or Chris Hammer’s debut, Scrublands. But there’s water aplenty in Hammer’s latest, The Broken River — and gold, too.
Welcome to The Valley, in New South Wales. In fact, The Valley was this book’s title in Australia. The area was once home to a thriving gold mine, but when the rich pickings dried up, the prospectors left and the area went into decline. It’s where Detective Senior Constable Nell Buchanan and Detective Sergeant Ivan Lucic are sent when the body of a local entrepreneur is found in Broken River. It’s surely something the local cops could have handled, but there’s politics at play here and their boss is keen for them to take over the investigation.
Wolfgang ‘Wolf’ Burnside was born and brought up in the Valley, and he had big plans to bring the place back to life with an upmarket eco-resort on the edge of the national park. It was a move that had divided local opinion, but was it enough for someone to want him dead?
This is just one of the conundrums that Hammer scatters throughout this complex tale, and one of them is to get mighty personal for Nell, when DNA tests of the body set in play an unexpected turn of events.
But back to the main thread, and as Ivan and Nell get to work on sorting out Wolf’s complicated life, the waters get muddier and muddier and they seems no closer to finding his killer. In typical small town fashion, the locals close ranks and even the cops on the spot seem a little hinky. Is there anyone that the pair can actually trust?
A timeline that leapfrogs between the present day and 1990 (and with a prologue dated 1988) certainly kept this reader on her toes. The earlier story shows The Valley in a different light, when another entrepreneur with eyes on a bright future and a big payday had plans to reopen the goldmine and rediscover a rich seam. They came to a sticky end too… or did they? The Valley, and its nearest town, Saltwood, has a habit of bringing would-be high fliers back down to earth, it seems.
As ever, Hammer puts us front and centre to the action, and that interactive approach really works. There’s even a beautifully drawn map of the area at the start of the book, and I found myself to-ing and fro-ing to it as the landscape unfolded and revealed itself in full Techicolor like the opening sequence of a TV travel documentary. From the irascible to the mysterious and all things between, the characters are moulded with finesse by an author who can set up a scene with just a few choice words.
This is book four of the series featuring Nell Buchanan and Ivan Lucic and those who have made their previous acquaintance will be delighted with the turn of events as they progress here. It’s a book that can be read as a standalone but the progression and development of these two is a joy to behold. In a neat little twist, journalist Martin Scarsden, who we first met in the aforementioned Scrublands and went on to take centre stage in two more novels, has a fleeting cameo in The Broken River.
Chris Hammer is at his very best when immersed in small town life, politics, quirks and secrets – and all of these feature large in this book. But it’s the pursuit of gold, the rare sound of running water, and the pure Australian-ness of it all that makes this one an absolute winner.
Australia’s precious minerals are also a motive in Opal by Patricia Wolf.
Wildfire
Print/Kindle/iBook
£10.99
CFL Rating: 5 Stars
This was published as The Valley in Australia.
Oh yes, thank you for the reminder.