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Broken Bay
Paperback

Broken Bay

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From the author of the bestselling and award-winning Cutters End and Stone Town, a captivating new crime novel featuring Detective Mark Ariti.

Old loyalties and decades-long feuds rise to the surface in this stunning crime novel, set in a spectacular Australian landscape known for its jagged cliffs and hidden caves.

Detective Sergeant Mark Ariti has taken a few days' holiday in Broken Bay at precisely the wrong time. The small fishing town on South Australia's Limestone Coast is now the scene of a terrible tragedy.

Renowned cave diver Mya Rennik has drowned while exploring a sinkhole on the land of wealthy farmer Frank Doyle. As the press descends, Mark's boss orders him to stay put and assist the police operation.

But when they retrieve Mya's body, a whole new mystery is opened up, around the disappearance of a young local woman twenty years before . . .

Suddenly Mark is diving deep into the town's history - and in particular the simmering rivalry between its two most prominent families, the Doyles and Sinclairs.

Then a murder takes place at the Sinclairs' old home - and Mark is left wondering which is more dangerous- Broken Bay's hidden subterranean world or the secretive town above it . . .

'Margaret Hickey blazed on to the Australian crime writing scene with Cutters End... She excels at using the setting to add tension and, here, it is the South Australian coast and limestone caves . . . A fresh setting for a crime novel, and the underwater scenes are suffocatingly horrifying.' Weekend Australian

'While the story of small-town loves, rivalries and misdemeanours is well done, it is, as always, Hickey's observations of rural life that are completely engaging.' Sunday Age

'This is the third novel featuring Detective Mark Ariti, and a ripper it is too . . . A fabulous addition to the wealth of Bush Noir novels available, and I recommend it highly.' Good Reading

'A tour de force.' Australian Women's Weekly on Cutters End

'Astonishingly assured crime novel. A pitch perfect outback noir.' Weekend Australian on Cutters End

'Hickey nicely layers the intrigue as we follow the always likeable Ariti, who once again discovers just how secretive and bizarre life in the rural hinterland can be.' Sydney Morning Herald on Stone Town

Cutters End was the winner of the BAD Sydney Danger Prize 2022 and was shortlisted for the Ned Kelly Award for Best First Fiction 2022.

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MORE INFO
Format
Paperback
Publisher
Penguin Random House Australia
Country
Australia
Date
30 July 2024
Pages
400
ISBN
9781761344541

From the author of the bestselling and award-winning Cutters End and Stone Town, a captivating new crime novel featuring Detective Mark Ariti.

Old loyalties and decades-long feuds rise to the surface in this stunning crime novel, set in a spectacular Australian landscape known for its jagged cliffs and hidden caves.

Detective Sergeant Mark Ariti has taken a few days' holiday in Broken Bay at precisely the wrong time. The small fishing town on South Australia's Limestone Coast is now the scene of a terrible tragedy.

Renowned cave diver Mya Rennik has drowned while exploring a sinkhole on the land of wealthy farmer Frank Doyle. As the press descends, Mark's boss orders him to stay put and assist the police operation.

But when they retrieve Mya's body, a whole new mystery is opened up, around the disappearance of a young local woman twenty years before . . .

Suddenly Mark is diving deep into the town's history - and in particular the simmering rivalry between its two most prominent families, the Doyles and Sinclairs.

Then a murder takes place at the Sinclairs' old home - and Mark is left wondering which is more dangerous- Broken Bay's hidden subterranean world or the secretive town above it . . .

'Margaret Hickey blazed on to the Australian crime writing scene with Cutters End... She excels at using the setting to add tension and, here, it is the South Australian coast and limestone caves . . . A fresh setting for a crime novel, and the underwater scenes are suffocatingly horrifying.' Weekend Australian

'While the story of small-town loves, rivalries and misdemeanours is well done, it is, as always, Hickey's observations of rural life that are completely engaging.' Sunday Age

'This is the third novel featuring Detective Mark Ariti, and a ripper it is too . . . A fabulous addition to the wealth of Bush Noir novels available, and I recommend it highly.' Good Reading

'A tour de force.' Australian Women's Weekly on Cutters End

'Astonishingly assured crime novel. A pitch perfect outback noir.' Weekend Australian on Cutters End

'Hickey nicely layers the intrigue as we follow the always likeable Ariti, who once again discovers just how secretive and bizarre life in the rural hinterland can be.' Sydney Morning Herald on Stone Town

Cutters End was the winner of the BAD Sydney Danger Prize 2022 and was shortlisted for the Ned Kelly Award for Best First Fiction 2022.

Read More
Format
Paperback
Publisher
Penguin Random House Australia
Country
Australia
Date
30 July 2024
Pages
400
ISBN
9781761344541
 
Book Review

Broken Bay
by Margaret Hickey

by Kate McIntosh, May 2023

South Australia’s Limestone Coast is covered in natural wonders, from dormant volcanoes to ancient caves, stunning lakes and, most remarkably, sinkholes. These are not your average sinkholes, either. (Google them, they really are something else.) Many of them open into enormous caverns and underground caves, and are the favourite haunts of cave divers. Margaret Hickey’s latest crime novel featuring Detective Mark Ariti begins below the surface, in one such hole.

An expert diver has gone down into a sinkhole to explore a newly discovered subterranean cave, but she hasn’t resurfaced. When a rescue team attempts to find her, they discover not one, but two women, one of whom has been missing for decades. Detective Ariti was only supposed to be in Broken Bay for a couple of days on holiday. An ocean expedition with a local family means he already has a connection of sorts to the brother of the missing woman, and a passing police commissioner suggests he might like to stay and keep an eye on things until the investigators from Adelaide take over in a few days. Somewhat reluctantly, Ariti agrees, and suddenly his peaceful weekend becomes anything but when a well-known local is murdered. This leads him to investigate two of the most prominent families in the area, and he discovers that nothing is as it seems in this small coastal town, not even the ground they walk on.

Although this is the third novel following the affable Ariti and his modern-day policing adventures, you don’t have to have read the first two. Hickey does an excellent job of including characters and backstory from the previous books without making it obvious that you could have prior knowledge of them. Her detective is flawed but likeable, the people he meets are recognisable, and their actions understandable, even when they lead to a sticky end. With a clever plot and a delightfully Aussie flavour, this rural crime noir is anything but dry.

Margaret Hickey

Margaret Hickey is an award-winning author and playwright from North East Victoria. She has a PhD in Creative Writing and is deeply interested in rural lives and communities. She is also the author of Cutters End, Stone Town, Broken Bay and The Creeper, and a collection of short stories, Rural Dreams. Cutters End was awarded the BAD Crime Sydney Festival's Danger Prize, and was also shortlisted for the Ned Kelly Award for First Fiction.