#JustFinished
A Plot to Die for by Ardal O'Hanlon (audio version)
The Picasso Ransom by A.T. Prewett
Parrot Heaven by Jessica Howland Kany (review now posted)
#CurrentlyReading
She Lied First by Dinuka McKenzie (Netgalley)
A Spy in the Blood by Paul Warner (library ebook)
The Mysterious Affair of Judith Potts by Robert Thorogood (audio version)
#NextUp
All the Missing Children, Zahid Gamieldien
Red River Road by Anna Downes (after a massive nudge from somebody whose opinions I value)
A Man Called Box by Tina Clough
The Writers Retreat by Victoria Brownlee
The Good Father by Liam McIlvanney
The Birds Began to Sing by Jeffrey Buchanan
Devil Mountain by Inessa Jackson
The Informant by Christine Gregory
The Rising by Whitney Fitzsimmons
The Ledge
When human remains are discovered in a forest, police are baffled, the locals are shocked and one group of old friends starts to panic. Their long-held secret is about to be uncovered.
It all began in 1999 when sixteen-year-old Aaron ran away from home, drawing his friends into an unforeseeable chain of events that no one escaped from unscathed.
In The Ledge, past and present run breathlessly parallel, leading to a cliff-hanger nobody will see coming. This is a mind-bending new novel from the master of the unexpected.
The Ledge, Christian White
Christian White is an author who can always be relied upon to come up with an unusual scenario, great characters and a rollercoaster plot that will keep readers enthralled, and vaguely baffled from start to finish.
Told in dual timelines, THE LEDGE is a story that spans childhood friendship and old secrets haunting very different adult lives. Twenty five years before the current timeline of this novel, Justin, Aaron, Chen and Leeson were typical young boys growing up in a small regional town in the Victorian mountains. They ride their bikes, wonder about girls, all pretty normal, until a tragic chain of events that haunts them into their adulthood. An adulthood that for a few of them is very complicated.
Dual timelines are nothing new these days, and they come with varying degrees of success. This one is slightly on the jarring side, told as it is from a single point of view, with the constant suspicion that when the reader is inside one head, the view could be skewed or deliberately obfuscating.
To be fair though, that observation only came to this reader at the end because the suspense is palpable in THE LEDGE, as is an overwhelming atmosphere of dread and "something not quite right". Starting at the opening stanzas when the narrator of the story seems almost reluctant to reveal his separation from his wife and family complications, and the reason why, after the discovery of a long dead body in the bush, he is compelled to return to his childhood home town of West Haven.
The dialogue is, however, spot on, right from when the four young boys were firm friends, to the current day awkwardness of three re-uniting. From the interactions with ex-wives, old friends, and people from the town who remember them, and what's known about the events from their past. There's also a clever use of place - from the small town - to the railway line - leading to a hidden path to The Ledge. A rocky outcrop known to the locals, used for parties, and more sinister events, The Ledge hangs over the town, and the boy's lives like a living / breathing entity. White also uses these places - the town, the ledge, the railway line alongside the boys, then and now, to explore themes of friendship, loyalty, masculinity - positive and toxic, and the way that young men who grow up in small towns with tragedy can so often find it a struggle to deal with that.
Having said all of that White's not known as "the master of the unexpected" for no reason and even coming to THE LEDGE expecting something, looking for it even, the twist, when it arrived, came utterly out of nowhere.
I don't know why I always seem to be behind with reading Christian White's books - every single time I finish one I kick myself for not jumping it to the top of the queue immediately on release.
A Plot to Die For
The first in a mystery series from the much-loved Irish actor, writer and comedian, for readers who enjoy the warmth of Graham Norton and the mystery of Death in Paradise , all wrapped up in one small Irish town.
When beloved celebrity gardener Finn O’Leary returns to his hometown of Abbeyford in Ireland to care for his aging mother, he is naturally roped into the Tidy Towns committee.
The Tidy Towns is a competition fanatically fought over by every town and village in the land. And for his best friend’s sister, Aoife, it’s a competition she’s determined to win. With everyone’s favourite gardener on board, she is sure that this year Abbeyford will take home the prize. But Finn’s not been back long when an alto-baritone at his mother’s choir practice drops dead during a rendition of ‘What the World Needs Now’.
With more at stake than just winning Tidy Towns, Finn soon finds himself trying to solve a murder – or two. For one of his many qualities is that people tend to confide in him…
With his mother, her carer and Aoife in tow, Finn sets out to discover just who has brought murder to Abbeyford.
A Plot to Die For, Ardal O'Hanlon
My sadly now deceased mother-in-law of Irish descent was a huge fan of a chat. Regardless of whether or not you were in the room when she started the story, had the slightest idea who she was talking about, or what on earth the point of the whole thing was. There was something about the cadence of her style that I was reminded of when listening to A PLOT TO DIE FOR, written and read by Ardal O'Hanlon. Who I must admit I know of mostly from his work as a stand up comedian and then his turn as the central detective on Death in Paradise.
The blurb for this mentions it's for readers who enjoy the warmth of Graham Norton and that show in particular, and I have to admit I selected it from my audio queue mostly because of the potential of the accent. Which was lovely to listen to, made the rambling byways and side shuffles of the whole story worth every listening minute.
A cosy style mystery, with the deathly seriousness of a Tidy Towns competition at its heart, the main characters in this one are celebrity gardener Finn O'Leary, his aging mother, her carer, his mildly batty father, and a whole lot of people in a small town that if Finn didn't go to school with them, there was a very close relative involved. Like his best friend's sister, Aoife, the other "main" character in this tale which involves some murdering, a lot of vandalism, and the deadly serious and very closely followed Tidy Towns competition. There's a spot of gardening, a lot of personal stuff, some really funny dialogue, and a bit of romance. And I cannot tell you how grateful I was for a recent QI episode because one character deploys "Dundee" quite a bit and I knew exactly how disparaging that is, why and where it came from.
Highly recommended in audio format, for the gentle distraction and bit of fun (craic?) that this whole thing provided, I do hope they do another in this series. Finn and Aoife were lovely to take along on the endless car journeys.
The Picasso Ransom
'Can we try escaping just a little slower?'
Fact: In 1986, Picasso's Weeping Woman was stolen from the National Gallery of Victoria. To this day, the culprits have never been identified.
Here's what happened.
Maybe.
Phoebe is about to turn 70, and has grown sick of retirement. She enrols in an evening art course, where she befriends fellow retirees Eva and Dave. They also happen to be studying across the road from a two-million-dollar Picasso.
The trio make a promising start, only to find that the school is to be closed due to arts cuts implemented by a blundering government minister. The protests of a student activist group - under 30s only - fall on deaf ears.
The Picasso Ransom, A.T. Prewett
Back in 1986 I wouldn't have had as much understanding of the opening line of this blurb as I do have today, as 70 year old Phoebe and her two similarly aged friends Eva and Dave are escaping from the back of the arts school near the National Gallery of Victoria, stolen painting in hand:
'Can we try escaping just a little slower?'
Nowadays I get it 100%. As would a lot of us who distinctly remember, and were in Melbourne, at the time of the real life heist of Picasso's Weeping Woman. (At this point can I highly recommend Marc Fennell's investigative TV series - Framed, which the author of this fiction based on real life story mentions in his acknowledgements).
As the blurb puts it - Fact: In 1986, Picasso's Weeping Woman was stolen from the National Gallery of Victoria. To this day, the culprits have never been identified.
The culprits at the time referred to themselves as the Australian Cultural Terrorists, and their demands were about the lack of funding for the Arts in Victoria, including some massive (abusive alas but funny with it), of the then Minister for the Police and Arts (I kid you not), Race Matthews. The names of the main players - the Minister, the Head of the National Gallery of Victoria etc have all been changed in this novel, but it will be very very easy for readers of a certain age to instantly recognise the bouffant hairstyles, and the flamboyant dress senses of some of the then main players.
The idea that three retiree art students - Phoebe, Eva and Dave - are the real perpetrators is, one assumes, a work of fiction, but there was something gloriously appealing about the idea that somebody of a certain age could hide out in a major cultural institution, luck out on moving around the gallery dodging a couple of older security guards, find the right sort of screwdriver, snaffle a painting with a few million, and stroll out of the building with it, all on a whim. There is also something very telling about the age gap between the "right on student activist group" who spend a lot of time talking about what they want to do, whilst actively rejecting the older three as too old to be anything but plants. All the while it's the older ones who have actually done something very radical about the funding cuts, and the threat to their beloved art school.
THE PICASSO RANSOM is cleverly done - being based on a still unsolved real life case - the author has had the opportunity to mix the known in with speculation in a way that makes the whole story sing. Having created three terrific central characters helps as well, although Phoebe is the star of the show. An older woman who has spent her life being conventional until retirement from teaching, a divorce, and the realisation that her life has devolved into nothing much, enrols in art school to follow a lifelong passion for painting, only to find herself in a situation she would never, ever have dreamed of. In her personal life, her criminal endeavours and her future.
This book is quite an undertaking, enormous fun, hugely entertaining and cleverly constructed, it also has that little kick in the messaging - about age, capacity and openness to new experiences. Filled with references to Melbourne in the late 1980's when it was still fun, vibrant, slightly chaotic (or at least it seemed that way to me at the time - not so now), this is serious mum, when it wasn't (TISM reference - read the novel).
Parrot Heaven
BDTH! The Foveaux Fisherman Facebook page posts this acronym to advise Rakiura Stewart Islanders to ‘batten down the hatches’ before severe weather events.
New Zealand’s southernmost librarian Maudie Sanderson reckons this warning could be applied to her life in general these days.
Haunted by a parrot and falsely accused of soliciting d**k pics, Maudie navigates a minefield of rabbit holes and mental health crises as she struggles to be a fit and proper person in a pandemic-hungover world. Sidelined by buggered knees, the avid runner needs projects to maintain sanity.
Island life keeps her busy. Maudie is drawn into an axe cult, scraps with the preschool teacher, discusses The Epic of Gilgamesh in a jailhouse book club, and mis-manages a community astronomy course. When a shocking crime wreaks havoc on her family, she dons her deerstalker cap and dives into the investigation.
All the while, Maudie feels a growing kinship with the ancient desert king Gilgamesh, as the words from 5,000-year-old clay tablets guide her through life’s myriad of mysteries.
Parrot Heaven, Jessica Howland Kany
Because I'd read (and loved) A RUNNERS GUIDE TO RAKIURA by Jessica Howland Kany first I was prepared for PARROT HEAVEN. Which was handy because the slightly chaotic styling of the first novel is ramped up even more in this one - to frequently hilarious levels, although anybody new to this series may just wonder what the actual... .
If you're in that space, stick with it. This is crime fiction (in that there is some crime sprinkled throughout), but it's mostly storytelling about a place, some people, and a life that's, well different, probably doesn't come close to explaining it.
If you need to know more about who Maudie and Vil are, along with many of Vil's extended family, and the slightly batty residents of New Zealand's Rakiura Stewart Island, as seen through the eyes of outsider Maudie, then I'd strongly suggest that you check out what details you can glean from the first book. Whilst it won't be necessary to have read the earlier to launch into this second outing it may help, but then again, if you're the sort of reader that can't settle into chaos then nothing may help.
Short synopsis first - Maudie and Vil, now married, with a couple of young kids are getting on with small island / wild weather / mad community life quite well - albeit haunted by the death of their beloved parrot, and the havoc wreaked by Bathmat the goat. Life with a toddler is proving somewhat of a challenge that Vil mostly meets by sitting in a bathchair on the lawn looking at nothing in particular while Maudie texts him little gems like "is our girl batshit?", and the goat eats his phone, and his divorced parents remarry treating their guests to a wedding cake full of wormholes (you'll have to read the book), and his father (referred to throughout as Dogbox) is charged with murder.
Of course nothing's as simple as a bit of a murder charge (which also comes such a long way into the book that you might be wondering if this thing has been mislabelled by then), there's also an axe cult, The Epic of Gilgamesh, a particularly mismanaged community astronomy course, and the local pub quiz. Meanwhile as the murder (yes it is sort of still in there), threatens to wreak havoc on the family, Maudie steps into conduct her own investigation - buggered knees, missing prosthetic toes (first book - or you'll work it out here), and surprisingly literate, but frankly vaguely batshit crazy, toddler daughter, son, fisherman husband Vil, mother-in-law, madhouse community and all.
Written in a slightly chaotic style of short paragraphs, flow shifts, funny observations, lunatic conversation ploys, mad people and crazy goings on, PARROT HEAVEN is so far from traditional crime fiction that familiar territory is so much further than a packed lunch and waterbag will take you. This is the journey is more important than the destination reading, although to be honest the journey seemed to have thrown the map and compass into the nearest tidal pool. All of which matters not a jot - get the sense of humour and gentle love for this community at the core of these books, and a reader is in for a hell of a ride.
She Lied First
Sisters make the best flatmates ... except when they are both keeping terrible secrets.
The stunning new standalone psychological thriller from the author of the popular Detective Kate Miles series.
The dream apartment. The start of a grand adventure. And two lives that are about to unravel.
Devika is living her best life, moving out of home in her final year of university. Close to the beach and away from her mother. Independent and self-sufficient, just like Kalyani. There's just one awful secret that Kal can never find out about.
Kalyani has it made. A new job. A unit she can afford, and her little sister as her roomie. She's finally achieved the life she's always wanted. Except for the one big thing she's yet to confide in Devi. A truth that gets harder to reveal the longer she waits.
When their lives are torn apart by betrayal, and Kal refuses to forgive her sister, Devi must peel back everything she thought she knew to rediscover Kalyani, lie by lie and secret by secret.
A Spy in the Blood
Mark Wolfe was the greatest spy of his generation. Now he's been put out to pasture. Gone are the days of dead-drops beneath railway station clocks in foreign lands that no longer exist - of dry-cleaning, double agents and triple crosses. Now Mark's stuck behind a desk in Vauxhall Cross in charge of recruiting the next wave of spooks, his only excitement fending off advances from deep-pocketed private security companies. Yet his discontent is just another secret to add to the pile.
As far as his wife and children are concerned, Mark is a quiet, affable civil servant who has no idea how to use the TV remote. So when he discovers his daughter, Jody, has an unhealthy obsession with joining MI6, Mark is caught off guard. The Service is keeping her recruitment a secret from him - but why? Then Jody disappears during a mission. And with MI6 washing their hands of her, Mark is thrust back into a terrifying new world of modern espionage.
A Spy in the Blood takes you from modern day London to Afghanistan as a once-legendary spy confronts the complex horrors of modern tradecraft.
The Mysterious Affair of Judith Potts
Someone is killing celebrities in Marlow! When footballer Gary Wise and thriller writer Tony Sexton are found dead, Judith, Suzie, and Becks (AKA The Marlow Murder Club) must untangle a web of blackmail and scandal to find the killer. But with their friend and police contact, DI Malik, suspended from duty, and Judith’s own past catching up with her, The Marlow Murder Club find themselves on their own for the first time ever.
With suspects piling up like tabloid headlines, and someone threatening to expose Judith’s secrets, the pressure is on for The Marlow Murder Club in more ways than one … Can they find the killer and help Judith in time, or will this be the end of The Marlow Murder Club?
Cold River
Deep in the mountains, secrets grow deadly . . .
Detective Constable Sally White knows how easily hikers can go missing in Victoria’s high country. But there’s something about the disappearance of Louis Taylor, a young man lost up Mount Viking, that’s not sitting right with her.
Louis was an aspiring journalist, researching the illegal tobacco trade – also known as chop chop – that was once so prevalent in the area. And the last person he interviewed before his hike has just met a gruesome end . . .
But with no other leads, and with the search winding down, Sally is forced to accept the young man died in a tragic accident.
Until she learns of another missing person case that bears striking similarities. Astrid Marlowe, a young lawyer, vanished in the same mountains two years before.
Were Louis and Astrid simply unlucky hikers lost in the treacherous terrain? Or did they both stumble into something – or someone – they shouldn’t?
Red River Road
On the Coral Coast of Western Australia, solo traveller Katy is on a mission to find her free-spirited sister, Phoebe, who disappeared along the same route a year ago. But as she drives her campervan further into the wild north, Katy realises she's not as alone as she'd first believed. Soon she is pulled into a complicated web of secrets, lies, myths and stories that force her to question everything she thought she knew about her sister.
In this nerve-shredding outback thriller, our obsessions with freedom and beauty collide with our fear of what lies in the wilderness, and the truth behind Phoebe's disappearance proves stranger and darker than Katy could ever have guessed...
A Man Called Box
Sam thought the worst part of living alone was the loneliness. She was wrong.
When a hunted man arrives on her doorstep late one night and asks for sanctuary, she agrees to hide him and to not call the police. The mention of a cabal of corruption is enough to convince her to do what he asks.
A decision based on compassion, which will soon change her life, force her to abandon everything and flee to avoid being killed.
But hiding and leading a lonely, anonymous life locks Sam into a situation she cannot resolve.
Thomas, searching for his long lost sister, finds a fugitive living alone in the mountains. Two stubborn people surrounded by danger and distrust, in a situation where one misstep will get them killed.
Who can you turn to if even police can’t be trusted? And who is the man called Box?
The Writers Retreat
A wickedly twisty and atmospheric thriller set at a writers' retreat in the South of France, The Writers Retreat is Knives Out meets Anna Downes’ The Safe Place from an exciting new voice in the thriller/mystery space.
Welcome to The Writers Retreat – a creative haven for writers to hone their plotlines and sharpen their characters while soaking up the Provençal atmosphere. But this year’s retreat offers something different, as real-life blurs with fiction, and suspense isn't contained to the page.
Kat Hale is a bestselling Australian author crumbling under the pressure of writing her second novel. On a whim, she has fled to a writers retreat in the South of France run by internationally acclaimed author Helen Thorne. What Kat hopes will be two blissfully uninterrupted weeks to focus on her writing in anonymity quickly turns into something more sinister, when Kat begins to suspect that Helen isn't quite as perfect as everyone seems to believe.
Will Kat’s drive to uncover the truth about Helen be any match for Helen’s desire to hold onto her career, her reputation and her writing retreat, or is Kat at risk of falling victim to a more dangerous climax?
The Good Father
Gordon and Sarah Rutherford are normal, happy people with rich, fulfilling lives. They have a son they adore, a house on the beach and a safe, friendly community in a picture-postcard town.
Until, one day, Bonnie the labrador comes in from the beach alone. Their son, Rory, has gone - the only trace left behind is a single black sandal.
Their lives don't fall apart immediately. While there's still hope, they dig deep and try to carry on.
But as desperation mounts, arms around shoulders become fingers pointed - at friends, family, strangers, each other. Without any answers, only questions remain. Who can they trust? How far will they go to find out what happened to Rory?
And the deadliest question of what could be worse than your child disappearing?
When the truth begins to emerge, they find themselves in a world they could barely have imagined.
The Birds Began to Sing
In the harbour city of New Plymouth in the 1960s there’s a fizz of seedy sexuality beneath a veneer of respectability. Godfrey’s world is the Balmoral Hotel his parents own, where visiting sailors drink and local fringe-dwellers congregate.
When Reggie, the openly gay barman, goes missing Godfrey senses something sinister. There’s a prevailing attitude of inevitability. Godfrey doesn’t get it, but he’s hungry to understand. Guided by his daytime-television and pulp-fiction detective heroes and a very active imagination, he attempts to solve the mystery—in the process stumbling into his own sexual adventures and discovering a new-found power in a perplexing adult world.
Out on the Ice
One brief but tragic moment out on a frozen Reykjavík lake changes Sóley’s life forever. Now, looking back on the last twenty-three years of her life, she attempts to make sense of it all. The tears, the pain and the lives lost along the way.
No one ever told her bringing up a son all on her own would be easy but not in her wildest dreams did she imagine it might be so hard.
Together Jakob and her have walked alone through the worst that Iceland could throw at them and now she’s here to tell you her tale.
Donkey Drop
It's 1999. Joel likes suburban life just fine: dole cheques rolling in, hanging out with his best mate, and the future comfortably on hold.
That is, until he lands a job at a smash repair shop.
Under the wing of a charismatic car thief, he learns panel beating, discovers pride in his work, and enters a world of responsibility, risk, and unspoken rules.
When a reckless decision involving a stolen car goes wrong, Joel is left with guilt he can’t outrun.
As pressure from work and the people he has begun to care about closes in, he is forced to confront the cost of loyalty and the uneasy truth about the person he is becoming.
Donkey Drop is a gritty Australian coming-of-age novel about friendship, consequences, and the choices that stay with us long after they’re made.
Lit
What would you do if someone you knew came back from the dead?
Gin is an architect on the brink. LIT, the Auckland-based practice she shares with her girlfriend, Clary, has been precarious since their third partner – Clary’s ex, Billy – disappeared, presumed dead.
Now, several years later, LIT’s financial problems and Gin’s personal debts are snowballing. Clary – emotionally fragile since the disappearance – is growing increasingly remote and elusive. When Gin begins to be haunted by glimpses of Billy, she blames stress and guilt. But could he be back, threatening to expose the past?
Trapped in a web of secrecy and betrayal, Gin’s downward spiral gathers force as she begins to suspect her paranoia hides an even more shocking truth – one that will send her whole life up in flames.
This stunning debut literary-suspense novel from award-winning writer Anna Woods explores the insidious charm of those who gaslight us, and examines the blurry line between love and control.
Devil Mountain
A wickedly dark police procedural with a hint of the supernatural, this crime novel is Dinuka McKenzie meets The Bluffs.
When Detective Sergeant Anastasia Brown is sent to investigate a grizzly murder in a small NSW town, she welcomes the chance to run from heartbreak and humiliation. But she quickly discovers that this is no ordinary murder. A popular doctor's body has been found on the mountain, chained and burned, with arcane symbols carved into the soles of his feet - and the boy who found him swears he saw a ghost lingering in the trees.
Is this a clever killer with a flair for the macabre? Or the work of an elusive Wiccan coven that worships on the mountain? Or, even stranger, are the local murmurs of the mountain being haunted more than just folklore??
As the investigation grows ever murkier, Ana realises that everyone in town has a secret… and some are deadly.
The Informant
A little knowledge is a dangerous thing ...
The town of Hopeville is thrown into chaos when the body of Silas Ziccone, president of the notorious bikie gang the Outcasts,is found next to his abandoned car on a dirt road. Evidence suggests Silas was not alone when he was murdered, but there are no witnesses and the locals aren’t talking. When Silas’s son Anton steps into his role determined to get revenge on those responsible police fear an all-out bikie war.
Journalist Lars Nilsson is writing a book on outlaw motorcycle clubs and is sent by his former editor to cover the story. Police warn Lars to stay away, but undeterred he pursues a lead that takes him into the centre of the gang rivalry.
With debts to pay and a teenage son to raise alone, all Silas’s girlfriend Ashley wants is to escape to Western Australia and start afresh but Anton is keeping her close. There’s one person who may be able to help her get out but when your whole life’s a lie, how do you know who’s telling the truth?
The Informant is a simmering crime thriller that gives a window into the world of outlaw motorcycle gangs, organised crime and police corruption that will keep readers gripped until the heart-stopping end.
The Rising
In a town scarred by floodwaters, the past refuses to stay buried.
When a catastrophic flood rips through the rural town of Birradurra, a shocking cold case is discovered. Unearthed from the mud are the skeletal remains of a baby.
Shaken by this and haunted by her traumatic past, journalist Bec Carter is consumed with getting justice for the victim.
But when her friend Harry who vowed to help with the investigation vanishes in violent circumstances, authorities look to Bec for answers.
Now the prime suspect in Harry’s disappearance, Bec must fight to clear her name and uncover the facts before another flood hits.
But nothing is straightforward, and someone will do anything to keep the past from resurfacing.
Twisty, atmospheric and utterly gripping, The Rising is a heart-stopping thriller where every secret comes with a cost — and some truths are better left hidden.
Nothing Personal
Theft. Extortion. Dinner with Dad.
Lola McKenzie never wanted to steal from her dodgy boss.
But she also never wanted to be stuck in a dead-end job, paying off her dad’s debts.
So when she sees a bag of cash sitting around unattended at work, she figures it’s time to make life a little easier. Only, the next day her boss is missing, presumed dead – and it won’t take a genius to figure out Lola is involved.
Turns out that Lola’s pinched more than a bag of cash … nestled at the bottom of the bag was a USB drive that could be either a curse or an opportunity.
Lola doesn’t know what’s on it, only that it’s important enough for the local cops and the local crooks to come looking for it.
Is it a magnet for trouble? Or her ticket out of the hard life? All she has to do is figure out a way to sell it to the highest bidder without revealing her identity.
Should be easy, right?
All The Missing Children
Ilene, a working-class mother, is struggling to survive and desperate to reconnect with her children, Jack and Lonnie, in the aftermath of a near-fatal tragedy. But her children vanish, setting off a chain reaction within the community.
Suspended detective Omar helps out with the investigation, uncovering disquieting clues, but he keeps getting pulled away by a dangerous cold case.
Benji, a recovering addict, finds peace by breeding lorikeets and caring for his mother, only to have his clean life upended by a stranger’s menacing threat.
Nera, a city lawyer grieving on a country farm, wants to find out who killed one of her animals and is faced with increasingly strange and unsettling answers.
**In this gripping tale of human frailty and the other-worldly, each character must confront the mystery of what really happened to Jack and Lonnie.
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