Bitter Wash Road (Garry Disher, Text)

Garry Disher’s new novel is a rewarding mix of small-town policing and corruption, parish politics, vested interests and the closing of ranks against an outsider. The outsider in question is Hirsch, a whistleblower cop whose ‘reward’ has been demotion and exile to a one-cop police station in outback South Australia, where he is ordered to investigate the hit-and-run killing of a local teenage girl, but directed not to rock the boat. Everything is stacked against him, Disher convincingly depicting the stultifyingly insular nature of the community and its resentment of an outsider poking around. When it appears a local farmer’s wife has committed suicide in ambiguous circumstances, Hirsch becomes convinced that there are secrets, perhaps other crimes, to be uncovered even though his own boss is ordering him to back off. He is, of course, right. The story builds to a satisfying conclusion following a large public meeting during which some very unsavoury police behaviour, and its cover-up by vested interests, is exposed. The pace of this novel is nicely measured:  fans of good crime fiction and Australian writing alike should enjoy it.

Max Oliver is a veteran Sydney bookseller and avid crime reader

Books+Publishing pre-publication reviews are supported by the Copyright Agency Cultural Fund.

Category: Reviews