15 years ago 18 year old Kieran is in a seaside cliff, with his secret girlfriend, when a sudden storm hits the coast of the small town in Tasmania.
She escapes but he’s washed out to sea. His brother and a close friend die trying to rescue him.
Meanwhile a 14 year old girl goes missing and is never seen again
Today the boy Kieran is back in the town visiting, he’s moved out and now lives in Sidney with his wife, a young woman from the town and his daughter.
On their first night a woman’s body is discovered just down the beach. In almost the same spot the 14 year old girl was last seen during the storm
The investigation into the latest death is going to bring back old memories, but are all of them accurate.
The story relies on the Venn Diagram of relationships in a small town.
Everybody knows everybody. Secrets within secrets. Little white lies, all add to the story.
Everybody has a little secret, but those little secrets, and some of the lies that were told in good faith, have a way of hiding facts.
But why would people lie, and have those small ripples, that started years ago, turned into a tsunami wave all these years later.
I would call this a cosy-crime type of story, but the suspense it builds up is anything but cosy.
The central character, Kieran, struggles with the truth that is being unveiled, until even he has to admit the unthinkable.
The truth of the story crept up on me, I don’t actually know when I worked out what had happened, but I do know I got it wrong for a long time before the penny finally dropped.
A great story, a great read, and another new author to add to my must be read list.
Pages: 337. Publisher: Little Brown Books. Available: Now
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