Canticle Creek

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His characterisations are right up there with the best of them, his dry wit and dialogue as good as it gets, and his understanding and observation of the landscape perfect. Although Daisy was already dead, author makes us fall in love with a character who doesn’t even make an appearance except in prologue and in memories.

When Jesse starts to ask awkward questions, she uncovers a town full of contradictions and a cast of characters with dark pasts, secrets to hide and even more to lose. As the temperature soars, the wilderness nearby becomes a powderkeg waiting to explode with just a spark. Canticle Creek has the feel of the Outback, of small town claustrophobia, but also the encroaching perils that the city and the wider world bring. Adam managed quite some time with Ben Redpath – both of them artists and Ben directed Adam, gave him some pointers.Adam is fascinated by the paints, but he lasts only a week before he takes off south, possibly following some woman he’d been seen chatting to. The time she spends with her father is a treat – a grumpy old curmudgeon with softer edges than he’d care to admit, very proud of his daughter but not keen to let on.

Jesse interacts with a good number of secondary cast members, who add conflict and interest to this spiralling tale. So when Adam absconds from a last-chance-before-jail situation that Jesse lined up for him, and winds up dead in Canticle Creek, Victoria - accused of murder no less - Jesse takes it to heart. When Adam Lawsons wrecked car is found a kilometre from Daisy Baker's body, the whole town assumes it's an open and shut case. It’s not long before Jesse finds some inconsistencies in the case that seem to back her appraisal of Adam as innocent.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. Jesse loves her job and has had a positive influence on the local community, even on those such as likeable but wild Adam Lawson who are often in trouble with the law. I did read in his acknowledgements a the end of the story that he received help and advice from Indigenous People and this has been incorporated into the story so well. This author has been on my radar for his Emily Tempest series, but this recent release (a standalone) is the first of his novels I've read.

Loved the tenacity of the main character, Possum’s courage and curiosity, her father’s wisdom and the setting itself. Three months later, Jesse hears about Adam’s death, from a car wreck after killing his own girlfriend Daisy in Canticle Creek, a small town near Melbourne. Another thing I really enjoyed was the incorporation of visual art and conservation in the storyline, giving Hyland's writing the opportunity to shine as he describes the paintings and the environment. Overall: I would happily recommend this well-written novel for anyone that enjoys Australian crime fiction.So much so, she found work for him and when the chips were down, Jesse stood up to the magistrate on Lawson’s behalf. With tensions reaching an all time high in this tiny rural Victorian community, Jesse is determined to expose the truth. The next day when Possum rides over to see Daisy she’s shocked to find that her friend has been brutally murdered.