Book description
Winner of the 2019 CWA Dagger New Blood Award for Best First Crime Novel
In an isolated country town brought to its knees by endless drought, a charismatic and dedicated young priest calmly opens fire on his congregation, killing five parishioners before being shot dead himself.
A year later, troubled…
Why read it?
2 authors picked Scrublands as one of their favorite books. Why do they recommend it?
Scrublands had a fascinating premise that demanded the reader to come on a journey to solve the crime. The author has an enjoyable writing style and his grasp of the media industry was second-to-none. It transported me back to my days as a newspaper journalist, chasing down leads, working contacts and desperately trying not to get scooped by the opposition paper, or worse, the ABC.
Scrublands is another crime novel that took me to faraway places, this time to a remote Australian town during a relentless drought.
The desolate landscape was so well described that I could feel the intense heat of the Australian sunshine and the harshness of the outback surroundings. While battling inner demons from traumatic experiences, journalist Martin Scarsden is desperate to rekindle his career, whatever the cost, while investigating a tragic shooting incident a year earlier.
Journalists tend to be outsiders in a small town, prompting suspicion from the locals, but are also well-placed to drag up secrets from the past…
From Victoria's list on crime thrillers with a journalist sleuth on a mission.
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