Peace

A scorchingly good novel by Michael Robotham. Disher is the gold standard for rural noir. An utterly compelling mystery with rare heart and humanity. An act of inexplicable cruelty. A family destroyed.

Constable Paul Hirschhausen runs a one-cop station in the dry farming country south of the Flinders Ranges. He's still new in town but his community work—welfare checks and a light touch—is starting to pay off. Now Christmas is here and, apart from a grass fire, two boys stealing a vehicle, 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 an incident on Kitchener Street, a strange and vicious attack that sickens the community. And when the Sydney police ask him to look in on a family living on a forgotten back road, it doesn't look like a season of goodwill at all.

In this brilliant novel, Disher takes his readers on a harrowing journey. There has been a lot of fuss about Australian rural noir in recent years, but few, if any, do it better than Disher.