PI Lane Holland

The tiny outback town of Nannine lies in the harsh red interior of Australia. Once a thriving center of stockyards and sheep stations, years of punishing drought have petrified the land and Nannine has been whittled down to no more than a stoplight, a couple bars, and a police station. And it has another, more sinister claim to fame: the still-unsolved disappearance of young Evelyn McCreery nineteen years ago. Mina McCreery's life has been defined by the intense public interest in her sister's case - which is still a hot topic in true-crime chat rooms and on social media. Now an anxious and reclusive adult, Mina lives alone on her family's sunbaked destocked sheep farm. Enter Lane Holland, a young private investigator who dropped out of the police academy to earn a living cracking cold-cases. Before she died, Mina's mother funded a million-dollar reward for anyone who could explain how Evelyn vanished from her bed in the family's farmhouse. The lure of cash has only increased public obsession with Evelyn and Mina - but yielded no answers. Lane wins Mina's trust when some of his more unconventional methods show promise. But Lane also has darker motivations, and his obsession with the search will ultimately risk both their lives - and yield shocking results. Compulsively readable, with an unforgettable setting and cast of characters, WAKE is a powerful, unsparing story of how trauma ripples outward when people's private tragedies become public property, and how it's never too late for the truth to come out.

For fans of Jane Harper and true crime, a dark and gripping thriller set in a small town in the Australian Outback, by the author of the international bestseller “Wake”. Gemma Guillory has lived in the Australian Outback enclave of Rainier her entire life. She knows the tiny, red-dust town's ins and outs by heart, the people like they are her family, their quirks as if they were her own. She also knows her once charming town is now remembered for one reason and one reason only: three innocent people died there at the hands of a serial killer. The last stop on the Rainier Ripper's trail of deaths fifteen years ago was her picturesque little tea shop. She knows that the consequences of catching the Ripper still haunt her policeman husband and their marriage to this day, and some of her neighbours are desperate enough to welcome a dark tourism company keen to cash in on Rainier's notoriety as the "murder town." When the tour operator is killed by a Ripper copycat on Gemma's doorstep, the unease that has lurked quietly in the original killer's wake turns explodes into the light, and Gemma is drawn into the investigation. Unbeknownst to her, so is a prisoner named Lane Holland, a former private investigator who earned a living cracking cold cases before he ran afoul of the law. Gemma knows her town. She knows her people. Doesn't she?