The Fall Between (Darcy Tindale, Bantam)

The first body is waiting for Detective Rebecca Giles on a property in Muswellbrook, floating in a water trough. Giles is fresh out of a missing-persons case wrapped up in a single day, one where she breezed in and fixed everything—but this murder won’t be anywhere as easy to solve. A recent arrival from Sydney back to her childhood hometown in the Upper Hunter Valley, she has fit into her new job neatly. However, the long shadow of her father—once the town’s favourite cop, now sick enough that she’s had to return to help him out—still looms over her, along with that of the fate of her mother, who died in a flood when Giles was just a baby. Darcy Tindale, in her first crime novel, takes an interesting path with the narrative. She reveals much of the crime to readers as it unfolds, dropping neatly in and out of the lives of those involved, showing how easily things can go terribly, terribly wrong. Ultimately, what truly happened will only become clear to the detective herself, and Giles, always keen to understand more, is a fresh take on the rural cop, avoiding many well-worn character tropes. The Fall Between is a balm for those who read a lot of the genre, a book to add to the to-be-read pile alongside favourites Margaret Hickey and Jane Harper.

Books+Publishing reviewer: Fiona Hardy is a children’s author and a bookseller at Readings. Books+Publishing is Australia’s number-one source of pre-publication book reviews.

Category: Reviews