‘I’m concerned for someone’s welfare.’
Constable Paul Hirschhausen (Hirsch) was posted to the one-man police station at Tiverton in the small South Australia eighteen months ago. Tiverton may be a small town, but he is busy. First, there is a snowdropper at work, stealing elderly women’s underwear from their clotheslines. Hirsch is not taking this lightly, but suddenly there are a few other issues to deal with. A teacher from the high school ‘phones him: she’s worried about the welfare of a home-schooled student. Things are about to get even busier for Hirsch: his sergeant must take leave suddenly, and he needs to take on her job as well. And then he is called urgently to the Tiverton Primary School:
‘I need you to get here straight away. A parent’s going mental.’
This is just the beginning. A child in danger, another family under pressure. And there are some concerning rumours doing the rounds about one of the local pillars of the community. An elderly woman dies: was it an accident or could it have been murder?
I was drawn into this novel and could not put it down. Mr Disher brings his characters to life with their concerns and frustrations, added in a few complications which kept me guessing, and has me wanting to read the first two novels in this series immediately.
There are several different threads in this action-packed novel, and Mr Disher manages to bring them all together by the end of the story. Highly recommended.
Note: My thanks to NetGalley and Text Publishing for providing me with a free electronic copy of this book for review purposes.
Jennifer Cameron-Smith
#AussieAuthor2020
Tasmanian Bibliophile @Large 