Scrublands

Sydney journalist Martin Scarsden, the hero of Australian author Hammer’s stellar first novel, is still recuperating from a traumatic experience while covering a story in the Middle East when he’s sent to Riversend to write an article about how the people of the drought-stricken town are coping one year after Byron Swift, a local priest, inexplicably shot down five men in cold blood outside his church one Sunday morning. Martin first stops at a bookstore, where he meets its beautiful owner, Mandalay Blonde, who’s struggling to come to grips with a painful past. Mandy insists that Byron, who was killed by a cop shortly after he committed his horrific crime, was a decent man who treated her and her late mother kindly, not the child abuser some believed him to be. Mandy urges Martin to try to find out why he did it. Martin learns after talking to others that more tragedies may be connected with the mass murder. The stakes rise when Martin breaks a journalist’s fundamental rule by becoming part of the story, which turns out to be a “heady mix of murder, religion, and sex,” as Martin comes to realize. Richly descriptive writing coupled with deeply developed characters, relentless pacing, and a bombshell-laden plot make this whodunit virtually impossible to put down. Agent: Faye Bender, Book Group. (Jan.)