Wake

For fans of Jane Harper’s The Dry or Gillian Flynn’s Sharp Objects,a searing debut crime novel set in the Australian outbackwhere the grief and guilt surrounding an unsolved disappearance still haunt a small farming community…and will ultimately lead to a reckoning. The tiny outback town of Nannine lies in the harsh red interior of Australia. Once a thriving center of stockyards and sheep stationsyears of punishing drought have petrified the land and Nannine has been whittled down to no more than a stoplighta couple barsand a police station. And it has anothermore sinister claim to fame: the still-unsolved disappearance of young Evelyn McCreery nineteen years ago. Mina McCreery’s life has been defined by the intense public interest in her sister’s case–which is still a hot topic in true-crime chat rooms and on social media. Now an anxious and reclusive adultMina lives alone on her family’s sunbaked destocked sheep farm. Enter Lane Hollanda young private investigator who dropped out of the police academy to earn a living cracking cold cases. Before she diedMina’s mother funded a million-dollar reward for anyone who could explain how Evelyn vanished from her bed in the family’s farmhouse. The lure of cash has only increased public obsession with Evelyn and Mina–but yielded no answers. Lane wins Mina’s trust when some of his more unconventional methods show promise. But Lane also has darker motivationsand his obsession with the search will ultimately risk both their lives–and yield shocking results. Compulsively readablewith an unforgettable setting and cast of charactersWAKE is a powerfulunsparing story of how trauma ripples outward when people’s private tragedies become public propertyand how it’s never too late for the truth to come out.