Voice of talented Aussie Fox missing

Title: Never Never Authors: James Candice Fox Publisher: Century RRP: $32.99 Patterson,

THE blurb on the cover of Never Never reads: It’s easy to go missing in the middle of nowhere.

The character at the centre of this Outback mystery, Detective Harriet Blue, is sent to investigate the disappearance of three people who have been working at a mine a long, long way from anywhere.

The story shows early promise – Blue’s brother has been arrested for a series of brutal murders and her boss wants her well clear of the city and the media. It hints at previous work by Aussie noir thriller writer Candice Fox, but in this reviewer’s opinion that is where it ends. Fox has also gone missing. Maybe James Patterson’s style is too dominant and Fox has not been given the freedom she enjoyed in writing her trilogy – Hades, her breakthrough novel that won the Ned Kelly Award for best debut crime novel in 2014, followed by Eden and then Fall, which revolved around heavydrinking and cynical cop Frank Bennett and his unease about his work partner Eden Archer, whose no-holds-barred police work is augmented by a vigilante streak.