SCRUBLANDS

by Chris Hammer, Wildfire, £16.99, ebook £8.49. Available January 8

AFTER the runaway success of Jane

Harper’s The Dry, the Outback has become the go-to setting for a crime thriller.

At the beginning, the pace is slow, but it picks up thereafter and becomes a real page-turner, ripping along like a bush fire.

In a drought-scourged country town, a well-liked and charismatic local priest guns down five men. A year on, troubled journalist Martin Scarsden turns up to write a piece on the anniversary of the murders, and discovers that a seemingly open and shut case is anything but.

Scrublands is well-plotted and atmospheric. At times, there’s almost too much going on, but it’s well worth a read.