AustLit

'When Hirsch heads up Bitter Wash Road to investigate the gunfire he finds himself cut off without back-up. A pair of thrill killers has been targeting isolated farmhouses on lonely backroads, but Hirsch’s first thought is that ‘back-up’ is nearby—and about to put a bullet in him.

'That’s because Hirsch is a whistleblower. Formerly a promising metropolitan officer, now demoted and exiled to a one-cop station in South Australia’s wheatbelt. Called a dog by his brother officers. Threats; pistol cartridge in the mailbox.

'But the shots on Bitter Wash Road don’t tally with Hirsch’s assumptions. The truth turns out to be a lot more mundane. And the events that unfold subsequently, a hell of a lot more sinister.' (Publisher's blurb)

'CONSTABLE Paul Hirschhausen runs a one-man police station in the dry farming country south of the Flinders Ranges. He’s still new in town but the community work—welfare checks and working bees—is starting to pay off. Now Christmas is here and, apart from a grass fire, two boys stealing a ute and Brenda Flann entering the front bar of the pub without exiting her car, Hirsch’s life has been peaceful.

'Until he’s called to a strange, vicious incident in Kitchener Street. And Sydney police ask him to look in on a family living on a forgotten back road outside town.

'Suddenly, it doesn’t look like a season of goodwill at all.'

Source: Publisher's blurb.

'Winter in Tiverton.

'Constable Paul Hirschhausen has a snowdropper on his patch. Someone is stealing women’s underwear, and Hirsch knows enough about that kind of crime—how it can escalate—not to take it lightly.

'But the more immediate concern is a high school teacher worried about one of the students.

'A little girl in danger. A family on the edge. An absent father who isn’t where he’s supposed to be.

'The cold, seeping feeling something is very, very wrong.' (Publication summary)