Garry Disher: Day's End (UK 2023)

From the Publisher:
'ONE OF AUSTRALIA'S MOST ADMIRED NOVELISTS' SUNDAY TIMES
Constable Paul Hirschhausen's rural beat in the low hills of South Australia is wide. But just as he has begun to feel he knows the fragile communities under his care, the isolation and fear of the pandemic warp them into something angry and unrecognisable. Hirsch is seeing stresses heightened, social divisions cracking wide open, and people getting close to the edge.

Today he's driving an international visitor around: Janne Van Sant, whose backpacker son went missing while the borders were closed. Then a call for a roadside fire comes in. It's nothing much - a suitcase soaked in diesel and set alight - but two noteworthy facts emerge. Janne knows more than Hirsch about forensic evidence. And the body in the suitcase is not her son's...

'THE GOLD STANDARD FOR RURAL NOIR' CHRIS HAMMER
'FUNNY, MOVING AND THOUGHTFUL' DOMINIC NOLAN
'CRIME FICTION AT ITS BEST' CANBERRA TIMES

Garry Disher: Day's End. Viper / Serpent's Tail, ISBN: 9781800817371 (August, 2023), 349 p., £9.99, eBook £6.99.