Opal Country by Chris Hammer

 

Opal Country by Chris Hammer.

Published in hard cover 6th January 2022 by Wildfire.

From the cover of the book:

Opals...

In the desolate outback town of Finnigans Gap, police struggle to maintain law and order. Thieves pillage opal mines, religious fanatics recruit vulnerable youngsters and billionaires do as they please.

Bodies...

Then an opal miner is found crucified and left to rot down his mine. Nothing about the miner's death is straight-forward, not even who found the body. Homicide detective Ivan Lucic is sent to investigate, assisted by inexperienced young investigator Nell Buchanan.

But Finnigans Gap has already ended one police career and damaged others, and soon both officers face damning allegations and internal investigations. Have Ivan and Nell been set up, and if so, by whom?

Secrets...

As time runs out, their only chance at redemption is to find the killer. But the more they uncover, the more harrowing the mystery becomes, and a past long forgotten is thrown into scorching sunlight.

Because in Finnigans Gap, nothing stays buried for ever.

****************

When Homicide detective Ivan Lucic is sent to an outback mining town to investigate the peculiar death of an opal miner, he finds himself out of step from the very first moment he arrives. Baking hot, desolate, and clearly on its downers, Finnigans Gap is going to be a very different arena to investigate a possible murder than the cosmopolitan streets of Sydney.

Fortunately for Lucic, he finds himself paired with rookie investigator Nell Buchanan who, despite her inexperience, knows the lay of the land in Finnigans Gap, and the two of them set to work trying to discover just how and why anyone would want to nail a local man to a cross underground in his mine.

As the case proceeds, leads that have them delving deep into the mechanics of the mining industries that dominate this town, and into the history of the menacing religious sect that has been established on its outskirts, and it becomes clear that there is more at play here than a grudge against a miner who seems to have struck it lucky. 

Both Lucic and Buchanan come under close scrutiny in the face of allegations and internal investigations designed to deter them from finding out the truth, and they begin to suspect they may have been lured here to be the fall guys for someone else's crimes. The only way to get themselves out of this sticky situation with their careers in tact is to get to the bottom of this mystery and bring the guilty to justice.

I absolutely love an outback noir tale and this is one is an absolute corker. It has everything I love about the genre - the tense, small town atmosphere, ramped up to the max by oppressive heat, hostile locals with secrets to hide, and the undeniable feeling that violence lies just under the surface. But Opal Country also has a few tricks up its sleeve that make it very interesting reading indeed. 

The way Hammer uses the mining industry as the background to this story is genius, weaving in elements of miners working small-scale claims through the opal mining thread of the story, the reality of massive corporate operations like Cattamulla Coal, and how the business of mining is heading into the search for rare earth metals. This beautifully mixes up past, present and future, almost like you are walking through time, but my favourite thing about this is the way Hammer shows that whatever the scale or nature of the operation, everyone involved is hoping to strike it lucky - whether through legal means, or otherwise.

But that's not all, because in addition we have two very different cops with their own ghosts to lay to rest, making them both ideal candidates for manipulation, but also allowing them to forge a strong bond; families and partners with scores to settle; the kind of poverty that drives ordinary people to resort to desperate measures; and the frisson of excitement created by a religious fanatic who may well be tied up with the mystery to boot. 

All these elements serve to offer a rich seam to plunder, if you will pardon the pun - one that feeds twisty storylines of corruption, greed, revenge and redemption - and Hammer knows how to use them all to perfection. 

For a book that is a smidge short of 500 pages, this was a fast-paced and thrilling read that flew by. It is linked to Hammer's previous Martin Scarsden series, which I have not read, but can easily be read as a standalone and has certainly inspired me to add them to my tbr pile, because this is just about as good as it gets on the outback noir front. I loved it!

Opal Country is available to buy now in hardcover, ebook and audio formats from your favourite book retailer.

Thank you to Wildfire for sending me a hardcover copy of this book in return for an honest review.

About the author:

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 was shortlisted for the CWA John Creasey Debut Dagger Award, 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 optioned for television by Easy Tiger (a FremantleMedia company). 

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.