It’s a scene that you could see almost any day on the scrolling news. ‘Five die in brutal shooting’. The reassuring monotony of rural, small-town life is shattered when – for no obvious reason – a stalwart member of the tight-knit community opens fire, apparently at random.

As men lie dying around him, the killer turns his gun on the local lawman, effectively committing suicide by cop. The consequences for the victims’ families, the police officer and shooter’s own associates are catastrophic and inescapable. And then, a year later, it turns out that these killings were anything but random…

That’s the hook which drags you deep into Scrublands, a powerful exploration of the effects of these far-too-frequent events. To make matters worse, the bruised and bewildered townsfolk don’t just have the media and official investigations to deal with: their farms, businesses and livelihoods are slowly withering in the relentless heat of an ongoing drought. They struggle on – shops closing, crops failing, livestock dying – until the appearance of a big-city reporter, Martin Scarsden, rips open recent wounds becoming the catalyst for an escalating cascade of cruelty.

Since I discovered Peter Temple*, I’ve had a bit of a thing for Australian hardboiled crime-thrillers – perhaps because the hardscrabble existence of the badlands is at such odds to our superficial impression of the Aussie dream of sun, surf and a tonne of tinnies in the cooler.

Initially, Scrublands seems to be in a similar vein. It certainly starts in fine style; the opening chapters are saturated with the searing intensity of a desert drought. When wildfires rampage through an isolated farmstead you can almost feel the heat blazing from the pages. A sense of despair hangs in the scorched air as bitter truths are laid bare and ‘everyday folk’ scramble to hide their shameful secrets. Author Chris Hammer has created some truly memorable Australian characters, too – especially Codger and Snouch – who are brilliantly ambiguous; socially appalling and yet curiously engaging.

However, the second half of the novel can’t quite live up to the blistering beginning. The journalist, Scarsden, is on his last-chance assignment. He can’t maintain his objectivity and rapidly becomes entangled in events. The author may be saying something about the role of the media in reporting / exploiting such mass shootings; Scarsden is certainly a self-obsessed snake in the grass. He befriends and betrays the townfolk with casual disregard for the outcome. Yet the narrative actually rewards him for this behaviour and he takes little responsibility for the effect of his actions. If he’s a protagonist seeking redemption, then he goes a damn strange way about it.

That wouldn’t matter so much if the pace had been sustained throughout. In the latter chapters the story bogs down in repetition, explaining over and again who did what to whom and why – as if the author doesn’t trust the reader to join the dots (or perhaps made the plot too complicated). All the loose ends are tied up neatly enough, but the fiery style of the early chapters has burned itself out.

Even so, the good parts far outweigh the bad and I’ll definitely look out for this author’s next novel.

7/10

Scrublands by Chris Hammer

Exactly a year ago, the small rural community of Riversend, a remote town surrounded by scrubland, was devastated by the shocking actions of its priest, Byron Swift. It was a Sunday just like any other with Swift about to carry out the church service at St James’s. But, having chatted with members of the congregation, Swift walked inside the church and came out a few minutes later armed. He shot dead five men before he too was killed by the town’s young constable, Robbie. Rumours followed, hinting that the priest was paedophile, but, when journalist Martin Scarsen arrives in Riversend to write a feature on how the town is doing a year on, he discovers that the priest was a popular, respected man, with at least two women in love with him. Swift’s actions seem inexplicable but Martin, who has his own healing to do, is determined to discover the truth. And for that to happen, he will immerse himself in Riversend and the lives of its people, an experience that will change his life. What he uncovers is extraordinary.

Riversend is a dying town. It is wracked by trauma, heat and drought. The river has dried up, shops have closed down, some people, especially those who scrape a subsistence in the scrublands themselves, are barely surviving. The threat of fire is constant and terrifying. And yet people don’t leave. They are tied to the town and Martin learns why. Nothing binds a community together quite as much as its secrets.

Scrublands is a truly immersive read. Just as Martin becomes almost obsessed by the curious town of Riversend, so we too become caught up in its story. It’s enthralling! Part of the reason is the character of Riversend itself. There’s not much to it but what there is we get to know very well indeed – its Oasis bookshop and coffee bar, the country club (the only place to get a cold beer), the boarded up wine saloon, the motel, the general store, the abandoned pub and the church, a place where people go to remember what happened a year before. And then there’s the surrounding scrubland with its isolated farms and homes. It’s all under attack from heat and drought. Water is a currency. Chris Hammer makes us feel the heat, dust and thirst, as Martin explores the town thoroughly.

And then there’s the people, so many with pleasing names such as Mandalay Blonde, Harley Snouch, and the unforgettable Codger Harris. They are all fully developed by Chris Hammer, each with his or her own distinct personality and story to tell. Martin couldn’t be better placed to get the scoop of his career.

It’s a complex plot and it becomes increasingly so as the book progresses and more and more press, police and special agents descend on the town. Everyone is edgy and it’s not surprising. This town runs on secrets. There are several threads running through the book. It’s Martin’s job, when he’s not falling hard for some of the town’s people, to knit them together and I couldn’t work out how on earth he would do it until the very end.

There is something wonderful atmospheric, oppressive and claustrophobic about Scrublands, just as there is about the town of Riversend. We’re led off in so many directions, all under that fiery relentless sun. This is impressive storytelling and already one of the crime thrillers to beat in 2019.

There were just too many things happening in this book. Instead of focusing on the main crime, little things kept happening that just weren’t important to the main storyline. This meant that I got confused a lot and couldn’t get hooked properly by the storyline. It’s very hard to get hooked by a book that keeps confusing you. By the time I was about halfway through I just didn’t have much motivation to read it and I just wanted to finish it. However I kept going because the main storyline was good and I wanted to know how it ended. I just wish that it wasn’t so long and dragged out. This book was very long and didn’t need to be almost 500 pages. It could have been a lot shorter if all of the irrelevant stuff was kept out of it. I’ve rated this one 3 stars because it was good writing, I liked most of the characters and there were a lot of parts that surprised me. Some of the events were quite shocking and did have me intrigued. Overall this book was good, but way too long with a lot of parts that I think could have been left out.

2018 delivered a year of strong Aussie thrillers making Scrublands the perfect choice to wrap up the year. What a corker! It started out as a perplexing mystery (why would a priest gun down parishioners on the church steps?) then evolved into a multifaceted, complex spider's web of deeper intrigue. Everything but the kitchen sink goes into this novel and it pays off great dividends.

Journalist Martin Scarsden goes to Riversend to cover the anniversary of the shooting tragedy. The town, in the middle of a record drought, is in steep decline with no hope of reprieve. Things are bleak. The surviving residents carry many scars and are less than keen to talk about them. But, bit by bit, Martin unearths facts behind the tragedy and is present when new developments make Riversend, again, the heart of a media firestorm. Martin seems to be a lucky guy in the middle of all the activity. With his finger on the pulse he seems to be the golden boy, but, the deceptive nature of the media cycle and secrets not wanting to be made public turn Martin's understanding of events upside down.

I appreciate the great skill that went into crafting this novel. It's stealthy, subtle move from sleepy tormented town at the end of its life to the hotbed of activity at the center of Australia's media focus is well done. Going from one journalist gradually befriending locals to a slew of newsmen poking about creates an uplift for the local community businesses but has consequences as well.

The characters are top-notch. A large number of diverse people, each with their own backstory and current day troubles, feed into this tricksy, genius book. As with all the Aussie novels I've read this year, this atmospheric gem makes the reader feel thirsty with sun-scorched skin as if you are physically there experiencing the day-to-day happenings. Brilliant. Thoroughly brilliant.

This is a brilliant read, there are cliffhangers aplenty and deep, rounded, well written characters who are as affected by their surroundings as the events of a tumultuous 12 months in the small town of Riversend.

Martin Scarsden, a journalist with PTSD wouldn't be the first choice of many to cover the aftermath of a massacre but almost a year on from the shooting he arrives in Riversend to give his slant on how the small community is coping with an event which was front page news across Australia.

Over the next few weeks he becomes drawn in by the town, its inhabitants, and the events which still shape it. Rolled along on a tidal wave of happenings each at least as serious as the last he finds himself unable to leave even if he wanted to.

The Scrublands of the title surround the town, housing some of the more eccentric characters from this story and whilst there is humour in them their lives are starkly and very effectively drawn. The drought ravaged area is described in a detail which leaves the reader in no doubt about the devastation it has and will continue to cause long into the future.

Added to the present day problems are the repercussions from the shooting which although apparently explained is still a puzzle to most of those who knew the priest best. Gradually Martin finds out the truth not only of the murders but also the issues which caused it and the complex secrets that have plagued the town ever since.

The way the book would end was apparent to me early on but after the interwoven storylines and continued mayhem it was successful because of its simplicity, normality, and message of hope for a future where at least some of those involved could hope for a more peaceful and secure outlook.

I was able to read an advanced copy of this book thanks to Netgalley in return for an unbiased review and would recommend this novel to anyone who likes detail and continual action in their fiction. I enjoyed every word and hope to read more by this author in the future.

Set in a remote town in New South Wales, Scrublands follows Sydney journalist Martin Scransden as he travels down to Riversend to write a follow up piece for his paper, detailing the events of a quiet town that saw a priest shoot 5 unarmed men at his church one Sunday morning nearly a year before. But there is so much more to the town than just that.

For a book where the last ~40% is jam packed full of stuff going on, the beginning of the novel is quite slow. You get the hook, Martin is there to write about the town that was shocked by a mass shooting, but on the shootings one year anniversary, Martin discovers that the reason Byron Swift, the priest in question, shot his victims is far more complicated than the town could ever have imagined. 

And I mean complicated. Once you get past the slow run up, the description of the town, the side lines into drought, and fires, and pretty women, and really start getting answers, you almost always turn the page with a hell of a more questions than you had on the page before. What starts as one mystery - why did Swift shoot these men? - turns into an international world wind of cover ups, cock ups, and cons. 

I want to praise the book for what it managed to achieve. Fitting that much plot into a story, especially a story where you started off thinking it would be a nice quiet town with a nice neat murder, was really remarkable. But it became a bit messy, I thought. There was simply too much happening. Too many leads and lines of enquiry, too much for your brain to focus on at once. And I think that let it down slightly, because I was just too confused and overwhelmed by secrets, plot developments, dots of details you had to remember from earlier on. 

However, I couldn't put it down. You get the new lines of questioning, the new secrets that are being uncovered, but Hammer makes sure he keeps you hooked until the very end with the one secret you've needed to know from the beginning - why did a small town priest, Byron Swift, open fire and seemingly single out his five unarmed victims?

You won't be disappointed. 

I'd be very interested to read more fiction from Chris Hammer in the future. 4 out of 5 stars.

Scrublands is an atmospheric, intriguing thriller set in a small town called Riverside in the Australian countryside. I really enjoyed the build up of tension; some parts felt a little too slow for me at times but, at the other end of the spectrum, it also packed in a LOT of different elements and occurances into its pages.

The town in question has had so many tragedies and disasters to cope with, meaning the characters and general tone of the novel is one of general desperation and hostility. Journalist Martin soon finds this out when he arrives in town to report on how its residents are coping one year on from a particularly horrible crime, when a priest shot dead five people for no apparent reason. 

Chris Hammer paints a stark, vivid portrait of this desolate and isolated town, and I loved some of the oddball characters that supported a stellar main cast including Martin, Byron, Mandy and many more. I could almost feel the incessant heat myself as I turned the pages, and the inclusion of an older and also a more recent 'mystery' means that Martin's investigation into what really happened feels more urgent and dramatic.

Saying all that, at times this novel felt like it was moving a bit slowly for me, but I didn't find that I lost interest as it soon pick up the pace again. I have to say that packing so many narrative threads into one novel meant it sometimes felt a bit unlikely that this level of activity and tragedy could take occur in such a small town. However Scrublands still packed a real punch and kept me turning the pages. It manages to be atmospheric and beautifully written, evoking a real sense of what it must feel like to live somewhere like Riverside, and I'm really impressed that this is a debut.

If you enjoy Jane Harper then look no further than Scrublands for your next book. Scorching drought, an array of weird and wonderful characters and a homicidal priest with a mysterious past all adds up to a great read.
At times it did feel a little disjointed especially the rape/parentage storyline and I felt it would have benefited from a little more editing but on the whole a great read.

My thanks to Headline/Wildfire for an ebook edition, via NetGalley, of this Australian thriller by Chris Hammer. It’s available now in ebook edition and due to be published in hardback on 8th January in U.K. and USA.

‘Scrublands’ follows journalist Martin Scarsden to Riversend to write a human interest feature on how the residents of the isolated, drought-ridden town are dealing with the aftermath of a mass shooting the previous year.

However, what he hears from the locals is at odds with the official accounts and as he investigates further the situation proceeds to get increasingly complicated and eventually dangerous.

This novel was a bestseller in Australia and I have seen in featured in a ‘best recent crime novels’ list recently in ‘The Guardian’. So I was excited to read it and certainly feel that it deserves the glowing reviews and anticipation over its upcoming print edition.

Coming in at just under 500 pages, Hammer is able to create a strong sense of the dying town and its inhabitants as well as building momentum and tension with the complex case. He also depicts how the news media conducts itself when presented with a controversial breaking news story as mistakes are made in the fervour of filing stories quickly.

Hammer’s experience of over 30 years as a journalist clearly provides a sense of authenticity to this aspect. It’s an impressive debut novel.

Martin is a strong protagonist, flawed and struggling with his own demons. The novel is as much about the changes he undergoes in the course of events as about solving the crimes past and present. He movingly reflects upon his role as a journalist to observe and record.

The novel works very well as a crime thriller yet also has an epic feel to it. Throughout there are memorable passages that gave me pause to contemplate while following the many twists and turns of the narrative. I would expect this to be a bestseller appealing also to reading groups looking for a highly engaging novel with multi-layered themes to provide opportunities for discussion.

I am certainly going to recommend it widely.

Brilliantly described detail really sets the scene in a hot, dry Australian outback. . This is a pacy exciting novel with an awful lot happening in one small town. There's a believable cast of characters and lots of action. But the star of the book is the beautiful descriptive language.
Thank you to the publisher and Netgalley for the ARC

The best opening chapter to a book that I've read for a long time! It made me want to keep reading and I was well rewarded with some good twists and a few red herrings on the way!

There is so much going on in Scrublands that I hardly know where to start.

The story follows Martin Scarsden: a journalist who is sent to Riversend to write a feature article on the one year anniversary of a mass shooting by the local priest who kills 5 people. When he arrives though, he finds there is more to Riversend than he was expecting. A mass shooting, a double murder, a rape decades old and organised crime. Pretty intense for a small dying town in the middle of rural Australia.

The real star of the show though is Riversend itself. Hammer writes and describes it in such a way that is comes alives for the reader, becoming a character in itself. Needless to say I loved this one. Beautifully written, the book is jam packed with action. Each crime seperate but all interlinked to this rural town. The characters are flawed and believable and the media put under the spotlight. Scrublands is a great choice for anyone who likes their books beautifully written, filled with colourful characters and full of action!

This was quite a long book, and I was glad it was because I really enjoyed it.For me the pace was great, and I am usually an impatient reader but I enjoyed the build up, the description of the small town and the weather and people in and around the town was great.I liked the main character and I liked the surprises that cropped up and were thrown into the story,I really enjoyed the read and looked forward to reading my kindle in bed every night eager to engross myself in the story.I had ideas about what had happened and I was nearly on the money, but not quite right ,and I liked all the new reveals.I thought this was great and I want to read more by this author.I would recommend this book to anyone who enjoys a good mystery that is well written and believable.Thanks to the publishers and netgalley for an ARC.

Scrublands would make a brilliant film! This is how all crime thrillers should be done, absolutely took my breath away and I loved every part of it. Complex, thrilling and oh so moreish. Highly recommended 5/5.

This is an absolutely brilliant thriller with an evocative setting in drought-stricken Riversend. The characters are complex and frequently lie, which helps to keep the reader guessing. Although this is a crime drama the main protagonist is actually a journalist who is struggling to recover from PTSD after an incident in Gaza. This book is well-worth a read, the only problem being that you might have difficulty putting it down! Highly recommended.

would like to thank netgalley and the publisher for letting me read this book

a strange one this one as i didnt like any of the characters in the book apart from mandalay, who has had a difficult time

a priest kills 5 people outside of his church and he himself is shot by a policeman... a year has passed and its time for a revisit by the press to see how things are turning out

and from there we have more deaths, fires , murder and blackmail all making for a great storyline but i felt it dragged in places but i did like the ending how things that were hidden years ago came out and some of them shocking in the extreme

not my favourite book but one that intrigued me enough to finish it

A great read but very long. The description of the town and surrounding area made it a character in it's own right. Believable characters living in a confined environment of an oppressive small town, all of their lies and secrets are slowly revealed. A well crafted story with many themes that eventually come together as we are drip fed all the clues.

This is a superbly crafted story with several themes all eventually integrated. The reader is compelled by the gradual revelation of yet another piece of information which changes the whole storyline. The context in Scrublands is brilliantly described and emotionally challenging. It is not hard to imagine for real in the Australian outback. The idea of using a journalist as the detective works well too. The characters are entirely believable in a very well written novel. This should be at the top of any reader's wish list.

A glorious beautifully described tale of murders and deceit in outback Australia. A wonderful cast of characters in this enthralling story of journalistic standards one moment, a rogue priest who happens to be a mass murderer the next all with drug dealing involved makes for a heady mix that somehow works and enthrals. The story twists and turns relentlessly and the pace never slackens, possibly the best book I've read this year. Beautifully atmospheric one can almost feel the intense heat which runs throughout,this author has set himself a high standard, hopefully there's more to come!

4.5 stars rounded up!
Well, this was a book that started off quite gently but then, once it got going, delivered punch after punch in a rather frenetic race to the end! Journalist Martin Scarsden has been through a bit of a recent trauma which he is still suffering aftershocks from so he is sent by his editor to the small town of Riversend to write a "one year on" piece about how the town is recovering after a priest opened fire on his congregation, killing five before being gunned down himself having turned the gun on a cop. The case is long closed, mainly due to the fact that the perpetrator is dead but there is an inquest on the horizon, yes a year after the fact but then it's not an urgent matter. But, as Martin starts to talk to people, he finds out that the truth he is discovering doesn't quite fit the facts as reported. Driven by his determination to get to the whole truth, the real reasons behind the priest's actions, he starts his own investigation. What happens next is more than he ever envisaged as there's suddenly a new development that brings the town, and indeed him, into the media spotlight once again.
This book starts off slowly but, although there is relatively less action initially, there is a lot of information to get to grips with, background if you like, as Martin starts to set out his stall and begins to ask questions. He has his own demons to deal with as we find out more of his own past too but he is in agreement with his editor that this human interest piece could be good for him. Little did either of them know the path that he would eventually go down. With the assistance of some of the town's inhabitants, he slowly starts to uncover a very different picture of the priest and, as he follows the leads thrown up by his investigation, the action really ramps up a notch as the full picture starts to come to the surface. The phrase "what a tangled web we weave" came to mind several times whilst I was reading the latter part of the book and pretty soon I was in absolute awe of the author and his skill at weaving multiple plotlines containing many characters into one story so seamlessly, often overlapping, merging and diverging until the whole truth was eventually revealed. Every scene is significant in some way, adding something into the mix, even though not always evident at the time and that really impressed me. I'm so glad I read this book at a time when I didn't have to put it down as the craving I had to get to the truth was, at times, overwhelming.
Characterisation was excellent - you'll understand this more when you have read the book and for that reason I'm loathed to give much detail here but I think I'm safe in saying that. for a small town, it has more than its fair share of secrets and lies and a very healthy slice of duplicitous behaviour. Each character was completely credible within their own storylines, again something you can't fully appreciate until the very last page. As with a handful of books I have read, the setting could also be considered to be a character in its own right, so integral a part it played in the whole.
Taking all the above aside for a moment, what really stood out for me was the journey that Martin personally took during his time at Riversend. This is reflected in his repeated PTSD flashbacks that we are privy to along the way and the way that they change as other things happen to and around him. He definitely goes through a lot in this book and, by the end, I felt that I got to know him so well that I really didn't want to leave him behind. So much so that I am really hoping that the author will continue his story, in my opinion, he is too good a character just to stop there. Start of a series maybe...? I really hope so.
My thanks go to the Publisher and Netgalley for the chance to read this book.