Chris Hammer
Headline (Wildfire), 2 January 2025
Available as: HB, 464pp, audio, e
Source: Advance e-copy
ISBN(HB): 9781035410774
Headline (Wildfire), 2 January 2025
Available as: HB, 464pp, audio, e
Source: Advance e-copy
ISBN(HB): 9781035410774
I'm grateful to the publisher for giving me access to an advance e-copy of The Broken River to consider for review.
The "Broken River" of the title gets its because it flows through a valley in New South Wales that was once ruined by uncontrolled gold prospecting. Trees were felled, farmland destroyed, the Indigenous population driven away, and the river itself redirected and channelled to serve human greed..
But the gold went away, as gold will. The Valley remains and is now peaceful - apart from ongoing friction between loggers and environmentalists. But it's not that which draws Ivan and Nell to the remote community, rather a prominent businessman has died under suspicious circumstances and the two are sent to investigate. Exactly why this death merits the attention of their high profile murder team rather than being left to the local police isn't clear, though...
I loved this novel. Hammer has established a winning formula with these books, dissecting the tensions and history of a small community where the shadow of the past is always, always shaping the present. Like previous books, the timeline moves back and forward, giving us glimpses of what set the modern day mystery in motion, but keeping the spotlight mainly on Ivan and Nell as they resolve them. The last book, Cover the Bones, also closely involved Nell whose family turned out to be involved with the mystery (but also, not to be quite the family she had thought). The Broken River builds on that family connection making the two books in some respects, I think, a little duology of their own within the series as Hammer tells us more here about Nell's origins. Given that Ivan's life has calmed down since his father's death, that is perhaps a logical development in the pairing. It's time to find out more about Nell. The past timeline has, perhaps, to strain a little to accommodate this but the drive of the plot, and the passion of the events and characters, easily carries the reader along in a story that's both exciting and baffling.
There is certainly plenty going on. The days of gold mining may, it seems, be coming back to The Valley, but, aside from the death that sets things in motion, there is a series of puzzles to be solved. Accidents, disappearances and coincidences surround the old abandoned mine. An inheritance is in play. There is a crooked lawyer who its suspected of enriching himself. And thugs from out of town seem to be taking an interest - what is their agenda? Will the new owner be the one who finally succeeds in turning this stubborn valley to profit?
The Broken River has a bit of everything - family passions, secrets, gangsters, and corruption in high places. Will Lucic and Nell be up to unravelling things...? Well, what do you think?
Marrying a fascinating setting with a vivid cast of characters, The Broken River is another excellent continuation to this series. And publishing these books in the UK in the dreariest time of the year is a stroke of genius (I write as I look out into the pouring rain) as we can live out all this drama beneath the heat of the Southern Hemisphere.
Again, the setting here is well realised and intriguing, helpfully illustrated by another of Aleksander Ptočnik's maps (though to call these gorgeous 3D realisations "maps" doesn't really convey their nature very well).
For more information about The Broken River, see the publisher's website here.