Canticle Creek

Product Information

From the opening lines of the book, I was drawn into the story almost immediately, bonding with lead character, Jesse.

I loved reading Jesse Redpath's reactions to a climate in Canticle Creek that is so much different than the one she's used to in the Outback. Despite little evidence to support it, the police assume Adam killed Daisy in a drug fuelled row and then he either committed suicide or had an accident trying to escape justice.I loved the way Canticle Creek was written, the language is pure Australian slang which makes it so more realistic, however i did have to google a few words, but that's a plus because I learnt something whilst reading! To calculate the overall star rating and percentage breakdown by star, we don’t use a simple average. I enjoyed the small town dynamics and the descriptions of the setting were strong enough to give me a real sense of place. Adrian Hyland is the award-winning author of Diamond Dove , Gunshot Road and Kinglake-350 , which was shortlisted for the Prime Minister’s Literary Award for non-fiction in 2012.

When Adam Lawson’s wrecked car is found a kilometre from Daisy Baker’s body, the whole town assumes it’s an open and shut case.There's plenty of threat, personal and community based, and there's a good supporting cast, as well as fabulous sense of a place. Even for me with my love of description and atmosphere, this was all a little too much and although I kept reading I too often found myself struggling to engage, putting the book down in frustration, to pick up something else in between. A gripping crime thriller, set in the sulty, dry heat of the Australian summer, with relatable characters and a brilliant plot. The language that resonates with the bush, that understands it, hears it, can read it, is a a treasure to read. As the temperature soars, the wilderness nearby becomes a powderkeg waiting to explode with just a spark.

There were sulphur-crested women with orange skin and hazardous heels, feral businessmen with titanium teeth and statement ties. They invite Ben and Jesse to visit the Bluehouse, their home, if they’re ever in the Canticle Creek area. Even more, I loved her observations of the people she met, their behavior when answering her probing questions, and what signs she found in the landscape around her.Neither of them can believe that Adam would kill his girlfriend Daisy, and everything about the case, including his car leaving the road when he was supposedly attempting to flee with scene, makes any sense. A gripping murder mystery at it's heart, with a clever, deftly constructed and extremely believable plot, Hyland uses this opportunity to celebrate natural beauty in the experience of his characters, and through the eyes of the artists he's incorporated in his cast of well-constructed people.