Review: Ripper, Shelley Burr

And a ripper it is! Shelley Burr’s original and atmospheric debut novel Wake catapulted her to the forefront of Australian rural crime fiction (so hot right now).

Her second novel is about a series of cold-case grisly killings in a small town that spark what appears to be a copycat murder straight out of Agatha Christie, with the slashed-throat corpse not only spectacularly dumped in the town’s centrepiece fountain, but seen by a full cast of suspects from the window of the tea-shop opposite. And, “like Miss fucking Marple”, as she says, the tea-shop owner Gemma Guillory is forced for various reasons to try to solve the crime.

There is nothing further of the vintage cosy crime novel about the rest of the book, however, which is thoroughly modern in all respects. I found its carefully diversified cast of characters hard to keep track of mentally, but I’m pretty sure that says more about my bandwidth at the moment than it does about the writing.

Overall, this is a deliciously twisty standalone story in which Wake’s antihero private detective Lane Holland reappears, albeit in a supporting role. Holland is among the more memorable investigators in the crime genre, with ample room for Burr to develop him further in the next novel in the series, which she sets up in a final paragraph that ensures this story goes out with a bang and leaves you salivating for more.

Fans of Jane Harper will be more than happy with this author, who has shot effortlessly onto my “auto-buy” list.

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