AustLit

'Nail-biting, atmospheric, and unputdownable, the brilliant new thriller for fans of Wimmera and The Dry.

'ONE MISSING GIRL.

'NO SUSPECTS.

'A TOWN ABOUT TO IGNITE.

'Quala, a North Queensland sugar town, the 1970s.

'Barbara McClymont walks the cane fields searching for Janet, her sixteen-year-old daughter, who has been missing for weeks. The police have no leads. The people of Quala are divided by dread and distrust. But the sugar crush is underway and the cane must be burned.

'Meanwhile, children dream of a malevolent presence, a schoolteacher yearns to escape, and history keeps returning to remind Quala that the past is always present.

'As the smoke rises and tensions come to a head, the dark heart of Quala will be revealed, affecting the lives of all those who dwell beyond the cane.

'The Cane is an evocative and atmospheric thriller, and announces an exciting new voice in Australian crime writing.'

Source : publisher's blurb

'One fine Wednesday evening, 65-year-old Ian Jamieson secured a hunting knife in a sheath to his belt and climbed through the wire fence separating his property from that of his much younger neighbour Greg Holmes. Less than 30 minutes later, Holmes was dead, stabbed more than 25 times. Jamieson returned home and took two shotguns from his gun safe. He walked across the road and shot Holmes' mother, Mary Lockhart, and her husband Peter multiple times before calling the police.

'In this compelling book, Maryrose Cuskelly gets to the core of this small Australian town and the people within it. Much like the successful podcast S-Town, things aren't always as they seem: Wedderburn begins with an outwardly simple murder but expands to probe the dark secrets that fester within small towns. Is murder something that lives next door to us all?'

Source: Publisher's blurb.