Wednesday, August 24, 2022

Canticle Creek by Adrian Hyland

First Line: She heard the siren scream out over the valley and her father came hopping from the workshop, pager in one hand, boot in the other.
 
Young Adam Lawson had a devil-may-care grin that could charm anyone as he searched for fun and adventure in his small-town Australian world. Although he'd had more than one scrape with the law, police officer Jesse Redpath likes Adam and believes that he is finally turning his life around. 
 
When word comes to her that Adam is dead and that local law enforcement thinks he murdered his girlfriend Daisy Baker and then killed himself, Jesse doesn't believe it. She takes some time off from her job in the dry Northern Territory and heads down to Victoria and a very different landscape in Canticle Creek.
 
Jesse has proven she has an eye for the telling detail that's often overlooked by everyone else. She spots inconsistencies, and her seemingly endless awkward questions soon ruffle quite a few feathers there in Canticle Creek. As the temperatures rise, the land bakes, and the wilderness encircling the town becomes a tinderbox, Jesse is about to learn how the dark pasts and long-buried secrets she's uncovering can explode into a firestorm. 

~

Over ten years ago, I fell in love with two books by Adrian Hyland featuring half-white, half aborigine, Emily Tempest, an amateur sleuth who solved a couple of crimes in the Australian Outback. These books were Moonlight Downs (APA Diamond Dove) and Gunshot Road. How good were they? When no further books by Hyland made an appearance, I went into a sort of prolonged mourning. When I stumbled across a review of Canticle Creek on Kerrie's Mysteries in Paradise blog, I was stunned. Once I'd recovered, I hurried to get my hands on a copy of the book.

Oh, Adrian, how much I've missed you!

This writer can set a scene with a mere sentence or two that can transport you directly to Australia: "A flock of rainbow lorikeets burst out of a scribbly gum and whirled overhead" or "... a weatherboard church that had gone to meet its maker." I loved reading Jesse Redpath's reactions to a climate in Canticle Creek that is so much different than the one she's used to in the Outback.

Even more, I loved her observations of the people she met, their behavior when answering her probing questions, and what signs she found in the landscape around her. Through Jesse, Hyland can even answer the question, "Can dirt burn?" Another favorite part of Canticle Creek? A forthright teenager everyone calls Possum. She's going to be a force of nature when she grows up. I was firmly planted in Jesse Redpath's world each and every time I opened this book and began to read.

If you've read and enjoyed books like Jane Harper's The Dry or Chris Hammer's Scrublands, I think it's a safe bet that you're going to like Adrian Hyland's writing. He is incredibly talented at blending compelling stories with memorable characters and vivid settings. If only he wrote more!
 
Canticle Creek by Adrian Hyland
eISBN: 9781761150357
Ultimo Press © 2021
eBook, 309 pages
 
Police Procedural, Standalone
Rating: A
Source: Purchased from Amazon.

14 comments:

  1. Adrian Hyland!!! *Happy dance* I've really missed him, too, Cathy! His Emily Tempest novels are remarkable and I've been really wondering what he was going to do next. It's so good to know this one's a winner. It goes right onto the wish list. Now.

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    1. I thought I remembered that you were a fellow fan of Hyland. I'm glad I made you dance!

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  2. This does sound like a winner. I have to look up books by this author.

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  3. The first book Moonlight Downs is $1.99 on Kindle today (August 25th 2022) Don't know what price it will be in future. Just ordered it.

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    1. Should have added that price is on Amazon.

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    2. I hope you enjoy it, Lynn. I love his writing.

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  4. This author sounds like one I need to try. Plus, the books are set in Australia and that's always a fun setting! :)

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    1. Yes, I love those Australian settings, too!

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  5. This sounds great - I will definitely check it out.

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    1. Fantastic! I was hoping you'd say this. :-)

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  6. The author is a new one for me. Will be looking out for this one.

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    1. I hope you get a chance to read and enjoy it, Mystica.

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  7. I, too, grieved the vanishing of Emily Tempest and the two books in which she was featured. So glad Hyland has another good book out. Will look for it.

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