Redbelly Crossing (Candice Fox, Penguin)

Candice Fox (Crimson Lake) opens Redbelly Crossing with immediate authority: a rural pub, a blood-smeared doorknob and the uneasy sense that something deeply wrong has slipped quietly into an ordinary morning. The opening chapters deftly interweave multiple perspectives. Publican Rob Winter’s procedural dread gives way to fractured family dynamics among police investigators Evan and Russell Powder, whose unresolved trauma and rivalry complicate the investigation before it properly begins. Fox anchors the novel in her personal connection to unsolved murders from Sydney’s eastern suburbs in the 1970s – a framing that lends the book emotional gravity and ethical tension from its first pages. She excels at character texture: brittle dialogue, domestic friction and regional detail establish a lived-in world that feels distinctly Australian without tipping into caricature. The pacing is muscular but controlled, allowing psychological stakes to develop alongside the crime mechanics. While the shifting viewpoints occasionally risk crowding the early narrative, Fox’s command of voice keeps the threads legible and propulsive. The novel offers not only a tightly constructed thriller but also a meditation on inheritance and the long shadow of violence across generations. A confident, morally alert addition to Australian crime fiction. Readers who value atmosphere and moral complexity as much as plot will find Redbelly Crossing particularly rewarding. For fans of Jane Harper and Chris Hammer, this is Australian noir at its most suffocating and psychologically precise.

Books+Publishing reviewer: Ananya Thirumalai is a Sydney-based writer and student of digital cultures and business law. Books+Publishing is Australia’s number-one source of pre-publication book reviews.

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