Canticle Creek

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And after experiencing Hyland’s writing and storytelling for the first time, I think it’s very safe to say that I will be reading this author’s work again in the future. As Jesse made herself known to the local cops, she made some friends – and enemies - while investigating. With plenty of healthy descriptions of the surrounding natural landscape, which is further compounded by the piecing heat, the sense of place is overwhelming in this tale.

Jesse certainly was not without her faults and she, perhaps too regularly, got it wrong, but then was just a little too brilliant in some of her antics. She helps a young Adam when he does something illegal by offering him a second chance; helping her dad and working in the local roadhouse. With a beautiful, atmospheric cover, this all added up to an engaging murder mystery and what I hope is the start of a new series featuring Jesse Redpath. They invite Ben and Jesse to visit the Bluehouse, their home, if they’re ever in the Canticle Creek area.There's plenty of threat, personal and community based, and there's a good supporting cast, as well as fabulous sense of a place. I thought the mystery was quite original, and I loved most of the characters, especially Jesse and Possum. Overall: I would happily recommend this well-written novel for anyone that enjoys Australian crime fiction. The cover (such a stunning cover, I’d have it as a print on my wall), the storyline, the characters – particularly Jesse and Possum, the art, the nature, the respect it shows to the First Nations people of Central Australia; this really is a terrific novel, one that I can highly recommend. My huge thanks to Ultimo Press for accepting my request to read and review this title via NetGalley.

Been way too long since anything from Adrian Hyland was published, so I will admit to some serious stack reshuffling when CANTICLE CREEK arrived. Jesse interacts with a good number of secondary cast members, who add conflict and interest to this spiralling tale. Jesse Redpath works for NT Police, posted as Leading Senior Constable in the remote, 2-person station at Kulara. When mother nature unleashes itself on the local community, there is further stress placed on this strained township.Canticle Creek was published by Ultimo Press on 8th June 2023 and is available in hardcover, paperback and digital formats. Canticle Creek is headed by bush cop Jesse Redpath, who is compelled to delve into a case involving a murder in her community base. Finally, I am still questioning the ending, or in fact almost two endings and the inclusion of the bushfire and its outcomes.

From The Stoning by Peter Papathanasiou to novels by Garry Disher and Chris Hammer – there’s a lot of Australian crime fiction to choose from. I thoroughly enjoyed reading Canticle Creek and would heartily recommend it to all crime noir fans who enjoy a slower paced investigation but with plenty of well-written twists along the way. The rest of the story is based at the Bluehouse, where Ben and Jesse are welcomed and make themselves comfortable while they investigate as much as they can, unofficially. As the temperature soars, and the ground bakes, the wilderness surrounding Canticle Creek becomes a powder keg waiting to explode.When Jesse sees an invitation to a National Gallery exhibition in Melbourne, she notices that two of the featured landscapes are one of her father’s and one by the late Kenji Takada. Supported in her determination by her father, they end up staying in the small artistic community that Daisy and Adam had lived in, digging into some dodgy logging practices, unearthing some suspect connections to Melbourne mobsters along the way.

When Adam's wrecked car is found a kilometre from Daisy's body, the whole town assumes it's an open-and-shut case. Jesse Redpath is a good cop working in the remote Northern Territory town of Kulara, at the top of Australia.Jesse Redpath is a cop in the small NT community around Kulara, and she was more than prepared to stick her neck out with the court system when local Adam Lawson got into a spot of legal trouble. Constable Jesse Redpath is the officer in charge of the police station at Kulara, in Australia’s Northern Territory. It is great to be able to learn more as well as have their experiences and expertise acknowledged and used in the story.