‘The page-turning new mystery from Chris Hammer, the international bestselling author of Scrublands, The Times Crime Book of the Year 2023 Dead Man’s Creek and Crime Book of the Month (January 2024) Cover the Bones.‘
– The Broken River
[ About The Broken River ]
A murder on the river bank.
A secret worth its weight in gold.
A body has been discovered on the riverbanks of The Valley, a remote community in the hills of New South Wales. The gold mine at the heart of The Valley was once the lifeblood of this region, but it has been flooded for decades. Over the years, many have tried and failed to bring it back to life. Now, most believe the mine is barren.
The victim is Wolfgang Burnside, deputy mayor – a champion of change or local schemer, depending on who you ask. He had been working on plans to take the Valley off-grid with hydro-power using the lake surrounding the abandoned mine. Until he was poisoned, his body dumped in the river for all to see.
Detectives Nell Buchanan and Ivan Lucic are dispatched to investigate. The warning is clear – there are secrets lurking in the depths of this Valley, secrets worth more than their weight in gold. What price will this town have to pay to ensure that they never see the light of day?
An epic, atmospheric mystery spanning generations set against a luscious backdrop and the twisting veins of gold that lurk beneath.
[ My Review ]
The Broken River by Chris Hammer will be released in hardback with Wildfire Books January 2nd 2025. Published in Australia (October 2024) as The Valley, it is the fourth book in the Detectives Ivan Lucic & Nell Buchanan series and has been described as ‘a masterclass of unmissable thrills and jaw-dropping twists‘. The old gold mining community, known as The Valley, is the setting for this novel with a fabulous map (see below) included at the beginning offering a great perspective on the village and its surrounding lands.
As this series has progressed both Lucic and Buchanan have developed as characters and their relationship has found its own groove. In The Broken River the focus is very much more on Nell Buchanan as it soon becomes apparent that she has an unexpected personal connection to this place and its people.
When the body of local entrepreneur Wolfgang Burnside is discovered one morning in the river of the village’s Memorial Park, there is shock in The Valley. Very quickly the investigation is ramped up with Lucic and Buchanan getting the call to be in situ as soon as possible. On arrival, following a six-hour drive from Dubbo, they immediately attend the scene of the crime and establish their office in the long-closed down police station. The Valley was once a thriving town but since the closure of the gold mine, little remains of its past glories. Wolfgang Burnside was a young man with ambition and had been developing an upmarket ecotourism resort, Gondwana Falls, on the edge of the nearby national park. With no witness to the apparent attack, the team concentrate on CCTV footage and old-fashioned police work trying to piece together the last moments of Burnside’s life.
In parallel to this present day investigation, there is another timeline that takes the reader back to the late 1980s, early 1990s. Simmons Burnside, Wolfgang’s father, was a young policeman at the time and became embroiled in a series of events that led to tragedy and subterfuge. As he narrates his story a complex tale of greed and murder slowly begins to unfold itself as the seeds of the modern investigation begin to take root.
‘All cops know the feeling, that brew of resentment, unspoken disdain: shutting down a party that’s become too loud, or stopping someone for speeding, or walking into a domestic confrontation. People hate you until they need you.’
The Broken River is a demanding novel with intricate plotting wrapped around quite a complicated level of detail about mining which, I must admit, did overwhelm me at times. In contrast, the unravelling of Nell Buchanan’s personal story was one I really enjoyed and would have loved to have read more of. The Broken River is a layered and immersive tale, featuring an unsolved heist, environmental logging protests, gold mines and murder, alongside themes of corruption, revenge, avarice and malice. Chris Hammer expertly weaves the different timelines and plot threads with very authentic descriptions of the Australian landscape.
The Broken River is another elaborate and compelling novel from this author who has been described by Sydney writer and critic, Stephen Loosely, as being ‘in the platinum class of Australian detective writers’
**Thank you to Ellie Pilcher and Headline (Wildfire) for my copy of The Broken River in exchange for my honest review
[ Bio ]
Chris Hammer was a journalist for more than thirty years, dividing his career between covering Australian federal politics and international affairs. For many years he was a roving foreign correspondent for SBS TV’s flagship current affairs program Dateline. He has reported from more than thirty countries on six continents. Chris’s non-fiction book, The River, published in 2010 to critical acclaim, was the recipient of the ACT Book of the Year Award and was shortlisted for the Walkley Book Award.
Scrublands, his first novel, was published in 2018 and won the CWA John Creasey (New Blood) Dagger Award, as well as being shortlisted for Best Debut Fiction at the Indie Book Awards, and Best General Fiction at the ABIA Awards. It has also been longlisted for the Ned Kelly Best Crime Novel of the Year. Scrublands was released as a TV series in 2023, distributed in the UK by BBC Four.
Chris has a bachelor’s degree in journalism from Charles Sturt University and a master’s degree in international relations from the Australian National University. He lives in Canberra with his wife, Dr Tomoko Akami. The couple have two children.
Website ~ https://chrishammerauthor.com/
