Dead Man’s Creek by Chris Hammer
I won a proof copy of Dead Man’s Creek by Chris Hammer in a giveaway on social media. It is published in the UK on 5th January 2023, so I was lucky enough to read it a little bit early.
Dead Man’s Creek is the second in a detective series featuring Nell Buchanan. I haven’t read the first book and didn’t feel I’d missed out in any way.
Nell is a young detective who has just been promoted to Homicide. She has a huge patch, which covers a large area of New South Wales. A body has been discovered following the destruction of a regulator in the forest, designed to control the flow of water.
It’s not long before the body is identified as someone who died during World War II. With no witnesses or suspects still living, it looks like the case might be closed almost immediately. But then another body is discovered.
The story follows three different timelines – the present with Nell, 1973 and a statement from an elderly man relating to World War II. There is a nice family tree at the back of the book (I love a family tree at the back of a book!), which told me that the 1973 stuff was from Nell’s mother and the elderly man was Nell’s grandfather. The family tree also told me some stuff which is only revealed very late in the plot of the book, so I’m not sure if that is a good thing or not?
Dead Man’s Creek is set in a very small community, where it seems everyone knows each other or is related to each other. In fact, Nell is related to some key players in the mystery (which reminded me of The Last Party by Clare Mackintosh), so she has to be sidelined from the investigation.
Can Nell and her colleagues, Ivan and Kevin, piece together the truth from the lies and speculation of the local community?
Dead Man’s Creek is Australian noir, following straight on from my Nordic noir read – The Rabbit Factor. Just as with Nordic noir, the landscape and the climate give a real atmosphere to the story. It has a lot in common with Jane Harper (the queen of Australian noir) books. It feels like it couldn’t be set anywhere other than Australia.
I really enjoyed Dead Man’s Creek and will definitely go back to read the first book in the series, Opal Country. If you are a fan of Jane Harper or detective stories, I would recommend it.
Nice to win a book! It sounds like a good read. I sometimes get confused with unfamiliar territory but it’s also an added interest sometimes.
It’s definitely good to win a book. It’s only the second one I’ve won and it was a lot better than the first one.
I love reading about unfamiliar territory. The only thing I struggle with are names when a book is set somewhere which isn’t native English speaking (so no problem for Australian or American books, but can be difficult with the Nordic books I like).