Canticle Creek

Product Information

Canticle Creek was a hot bed of secrets amid the soaring heat of the summer sun. As Jesse made herself known to the local cops, she made some friends – and enemies - while investigating. Possum, a sixteen-year-old young woman who had more smarts than some adults Jesse had met, was intelligent and helpful. But what would they find in the small town of Canticle Creek? She had earned herself a law degree, didn’t like that side of the law, so surprised everyone by training with the Territory police. She knows her people and she knew Adam. No way he did that. With her father, Jesse visits Canticle Creek to understand, and unravels many other mysteries and knots of a typical small community. Whether Jesse survives the hardships she faced and solves the mystery makes the plot of the book. A brilliant Aussie thriller, The Wiregrass is perfect for fans of Jane Harper, Chris Hammer and Candice Fox.’ - Books and Publishing

Canticle Creek - Kindle edition by Hyland, Adrian. Mystery

Kenji Takada, a Japanese artist, was just passing through when he came across Canticle Creek, captivated he painted it and decided to put down roots and stay. Here he captures the landscape and leaves his own mark on the area. His daughter and granddaughter are the continuing strong influence on the area. Small town, a seemingly open and shut crime has occurred. A police officer with something to prove, alongside her eccentric father travel to the small town and is determined to get to the bottom of whatever is going on. The rural crime fiction wave continues with this brilliant new arid drama.’ – Australian Women's WeeklyAward winning Australian author Adrian Hyland makes a return to the publishing scene with Canticle Creek, an evocative and tense crime fiction novel.

Canticle Creek (Adrian Hyland) - book review - The Blurb Canticle Creek (Adrian Hyland) - book review - The Blurb

But Jesse Redpath isn’t from Canticle Creek. Where she comes from, the truth often hides in plain sight, but only if you know where to look. 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.The writing is breezy, with humour and action throughout. Jesse Redpath is up there with Jane Harper’s Aaron Falk and Chris Hammer’s Martin Scarsden as a sleuth who gets down and dirty with the harshest natural environments of Australia, and with some of the meanest human inhabitants. I look forward to future titles in this series. More direct than Disher, but really well written and plotted, with more twists and turns than many a country road!

On the Radar: Follow the desert star | Crime Fiction Lover

A nice little murder mystery set in rural Australia. I enjoyed the small town dynamics and the descriptions of the setting were strong enough to give me a real sense of place. Jesse was told that the evidence against Adam was clear and that the case was fairly conclusive, but after reading all the police reports, she just wasn’t convinced; She knew this boy, and didn’t believe that he was capable of these crimes…nor was her father convinced. Seems like Nash has enemies. And what looks like a close knit community might just be cover for dark secrets. Though the case was pretty much closed, Jesse started doing some digging of her own and soon started to ruffle a few feathers with her snooping.Jesse’s an appealing protagonist, a thoughtful and capable and police officer, with investigative skills learnt from Danny Jakamarra, the Aboriginal Community Police Officer, whom she works with in Kulara. I liked the character of Possum, the teenage friend of the murdered woman, and the surprise of Nadia’s character. There’s an authenticity to Hyland’s characters generally, both in the way they talk and act, that gives them substance. It wasn’t until year 4 that Shane Jenek was made to feel that “people with penises should act differently from people with vaginas”. Instinctively, the young boy knew that he didn’t belong on either side of this divide. When he moved from Brisbane to Sydney in his late teens and discovered the drag-queen scene, he found a way to control the narrative of his life. For the first time since he was bullied by the alpha boys at school, he could give expression to his innate femininity while feeling powerful around straight men. Since his mainstream debut as Courtney Act on Australian Idol, Courtney has appeared on reality TV in the US and Britain and more recently on the ABC. Often funny and always frank, this memoir charts Jenek’s embrace of his gender fluidity: the process of “unbecoming who the world had told me to be” so that “I was finally able to become myself”. I enjoyed the characters and their dialect. While at times it took a moment to understand – I loved the speech patterns and local habits. A common story seen within this genre, predictable plot lines, however still enjoyable. There wasn’t much character development, and there was a lot of predictability. As the temperature soars, and the ground bakes, the wilderness surrounding Canticle Creek becomes a powderkeg waiting to explode. All it needs is one spark.

Canticle Creek by Adrian Hyland | Crime Fiction Lover

Jesse Redpath is a good cop working in the remote Northern Territory town of Kulara, at the top of Australia. So much for the city folk. But while admiring Takada’s painting, they meet his daughter, Lucy, with her husband Sam and teen-aged daughter Possum. They invite Ben and Jesse to visit the Bluehouse, their home, if they’re ever in the Canticle Creek area. Jesse Redpath is a police officer in Kulara, in the middle of the Northern Territory. She organises for a young Aboriginal man called Adam to be given community service and live with her artist father. But Adam leaves and the next she hears he has been accused of murdering his girlfriend in a small Victorian town and is himself dead in a car accident. Jesse does not believe Adam to be capable of murder and, using an exhibition featuring her father’s art as an excuse, travels to Victoria to investigate. While at first things seems to have been as the local police claim, she soon she finds that the situation is much more complicated and that her hunch may well be right. I feel I’d recognise his people if I ran into them in a dusty pub (or an art gallery). His descriptions of characters and landscape are memorable. I really enjoyed this and his two Emily Tempest books. I hope we don’t have to wait another ten years for a new one. He and Garry Disher are both worth waiting for, though.

Hyland, a seasoned firefighter, ensures the climactic inferno takes your breath away. More please.’ - The Times Hyland has mastered the architecture of noir – his sinister tale seethes with small-town atmosphere and satisfying twists, set against the dangers and harsh beauty of the Australian landscape.’ ― Sydney Morning Herald