This is not your typical outback thriller.
The first drops start to fall when Quinn spies the body. With no reception and nothing but an empty road for miles, does she stop to help or keep driving to safety?
Back at the iconic country pub where Quinn works, Andrea is sandbagging the place in preparation for heavy rains. Alone with her sleeping son in the back room, she reluctantly lets a biker in to wait out the storm.
Out on the wet roads, tensions arise among four backpackers on their way to Darwin. They haven’t prepared for this kind of weather and the flooding isn’t the only threat on the horizon…
The Lost Man meets Wolf Creek in this tense and twisted compulsive thriller that will send adrenaline coursing through your veins. Michelle Prak is a major new voice in crime fiction, and judging by the response to The Rush, she’s here to stay. Prak provides a polished, compelling tale with an elegantly economical style that fuels the chilling impact of the story.
The Rush flips the remote Australian setting on its head, serving a much more sinister atmosphere than we’ve seen before. The landscape and natural elements, including the looming threat of rain, are crucial to the story and used to build ominous tension. And in the thick of this perfect storm, the stories of Quinn, Livia, Andrea and Hayley. These four very different women are expertly drawn together, providing a fast-paced thriller and a wild ride of suspense that leads to a terrifying climax.
This is pure propulsive storytelling from Prak. In this, the characters and their individual situations are completely accessible: sandbagging to prepare for a storm and protecting your child, stopping your car to check on what seems to be a victim, heading out on a road trip with people you don’t truly know in foreign terrain. These events are relatable, cleverly and swiftly escalating our investment in these four women and their frightening situations.
The Rush explores toxic masculinity, misogyny, the impact of social media and online communities. With these, Prak takes us by the throat, rather than the hand, right from page one and doesn’t let up. Quite the feat. Time shifts and shifting points of view between the main characters make us search for the patterns, adding to the page-turning tension; in some ways it’s an anthology of terror.
The Rush is a delightfully a scary read, all too easy to imagine happening to any of us, which is all part of the fun. If you want to up the ante, read it while there’s a storm outside.
Your book sounds great will be getting it as soon as I can IHave read List man & watched Wolf Creek 1 while we toured in caravan not good idea No 2 Wolf Creek still sits on shelf to watch. I prefer to read books