JAI BAIDELL

I read this in one sitting. You have to do that, because it's impossible to put it down. It's dark, it's gripping, and it's very, very addictive. Theodore Tate is an ex-detective, a man falling towards the dark side after tragedy struck his family. He is already drowning in regret over his sins of omission and commission when he becomes obsessed with a series of murders and determined to stop the killer. The cemetery, a wet, muddy place of death and sorrow, is the centre of Tate's life. His daughter is buried there, much of the action of the book takes place there, and murder victims and suspects alike appear there in rapid succession. The story is dark, sad, and frightening, and the suspense doesn't let up. I don't usually like gory psychological thrillers but once I started down the path Cleave has laid out there was no turning back. Christchurch in New Zealand's South Island, the setting for this book, is a place we associate with grief and trag

Muttama Creek runs through the middle of Cootamundra, over several flood-prone low-level crossings and under a few bridges. It runs down through a wide valley, its own floodplain, to Coolac and then into the Murrumbidgee River. Muttama Creek, Cootamundra, NSW It doesn't look like much, but this tiny watercourse has serious form. It used to feed a large dam, the Stock Dam, on the location of what is now Jubilee Park. It flooded Parker Street, the main street, to over a metre on more than one occasion. (Photo below, Coota Deluge 4.12.19,  from State Library of NSW, see original here ) Parker St, Cootamundra, 1919 (Photo State Library of NSW) Amazingly, Muttama Creek washed away the railway to Gundagai and Tumut so many times that in the end the track was abandoned completely in 1984. About 25km downstream is the village of Muttama, and the creek there is much more robust, running even in December (the first month of summer). Muttama Creek, Muttama, NSW The