A NATIONAL BESTSELLER Who's lying about what happened at Dirt Creek?
“Blends a taut psychological thriller with a suspenseful police procedural…Fans of Liane Moriarty and Jane Harper won’t want to miss this page-turner.” —Publishers Weekly, starred review
“A novel of sharp-edged tempers, accidents waiting to happen and dark inheritances.” —New York Times Book Review
When twelve-year-old Esther disappears on the way home from school in a small town in rural Australia, the community is thrown into a maelstrom of suspicion and grief. As Detective Sergeant Sarah Michaels arrives in town during the hottest spring in decades and begins her investigation, Esther’s tenacious best friend, Ronnie, is determined to find Esther and bring her home.
When schoolfriend Lewis tells Ronnie that he saw Esther with a strange man at the creek the afternoon she went missing, Ronnie feels she is one step closer to finding her. But why is Lewis refusing to speak to the police? And who else is lying about how much they know about what has happened to Esther?
Punctuated by a Greek chorus, which gives voice to the remaining children of the small, dying town, this novel explores the ties that bind, what we try and leave behind us, and what we can never outrun, while never losing sight of the question of what happened to Esther, and what her loss does to a whole town.
In Hayley Scrivenor's Dirt Creek, a small-town debut mystery described as The Dry meets Everything I Never Told You, a girl goes missing and a community falls apart and comes together.
Originally from a small country town in rural Australia, Hayley Scrivenor is a writer, teacher and former Director of Wollongong Writers Festival. Dirt Creek is her first novel. An earlier version of the book was shortlisted for the Penguin Literary Prize and won The Kill Your Darlings Unpublished Manuscript Award. Hayley lives and writes on Dharawal country, on the south coast of New South Wales in Australia.
It’s no wonder small towns catch the thoughts of so many authors — secrets are only heightened when it seems like everyone knows everything about everybody. If you’re looking to unravel mysteries set in tight-knit communities, then look no further than these thrillers guaranteed to send chills down your spine.
Summer is just around the corner, and June brings the perfect weather for sitting out on the grass and reading amazing books. Our Monthly Picks build an exceptional TBR pile with a small-town thriller about a girl gone missing, a science-fiction novel about the intelligence of an octopus species, a touching story about dueling pianists […]