Scrublands by Chris Hammer, Book Review, wow!

How much did I love this book ? Let me count the ways:

• It has a great start, plunging you into straight into the heart of the mystery.
• The setting is beautifully sketched; the dying town of Riversend, with its dried up river bed and forlorn empty houses, the scrubby wasteland all around.
• As for the climate: I could feel the heat, I struggled to breathe the hot, dry air. My eyes too were blinded by the searing sun. And I forgot that I live in colder and wetter climes.
• I was instantly intrigued by the characters, all of them, from the town drunk to the enigmatic beauty running the local book shop.  
• The intricately woven and yet pacey plot had me guessing and guessing again, all the way through.

I haven’t read much Australian crime, and if it’s all like this one, I’ve been missing out. Chris Hammer, himself a journalist, sends his troubled protagonist Martin Scarsden to Riversend in the drought-ridden outback to find a story that will sell papers. Some people go to ashrams in India to find themselves, but Scarsden, who suffers from PTSD from prior foreign correspondent business in the Middle East, ends up having to confront his demons in the vast empty scrublands with its dying town. As more bodies are discovered, he finds himself in the middle of a complex mystery. A situation that will either ruin him completely or help him to rebuild his life. I won’t give away what happens, but he certainly found a story, a great story.

I’m not surprised that this debut novel by Chris Hammer was so successful when first launched in Australia in 2018. Scrublands was released in the UK in January 2019 in hardback (£16.99) and ebook by Wildfire (Headline Publishing Group).