Broke Road

Over the border in New South Wales, the body of a woman is discovered in her home. While the local ambulance-chasing media and other ‘content creators’ have pegged the woman’s husband as the culprit, the police, headed up by homicide detective Rose Riley, are baffled. This is Matthew Spencer’s second Rose Riley book. I confess I didn’t read the first, but it’s not essential before diving into the second.

Broke Road is thoroughly entertaining. This is more of a traditional police procedural, and there are lots of shifty and unsavoury characters you can love to hate. I was surprised by how the plot unfolds: at first slowly, but with a quickening pace as the momentum with the investigation shifts. This apparent single-murder case quickly morphs into a bigger, cross-border investigation with a greater sense of urgency. Rose is reunited with true-crime journalist Adam Bowman, who ‘embeds’ himself closer to Rose and the action.

Australia is full of fabulous wine regions, and the Hunter Valley and its small townships west of Newcastle provide a picturesque setting for this book. Sweeping landscapes of vineyards are easily conjured in the imagination of readers. In the genre, there’s always an element to the landscape or setting that directly ties to the main character’s personality and history. In Broke Road, it’s Rose’s own family background and grandparents’ land, long since subsumed into the vast estates of a greedy local wine baron. With its twisty plot and satisfying end, this is a book to take on a weekend getaway to devour in front of the fire.