The small town of Nannine lies in the harsh red interior of New South Wales. Once a thriving outback centre, years of punishing drought have whittled it down to no more than a couple of pubs and a police station. And its one sinister claim to fame: the still-unsolved disappearance of Evelyn McCreery nineteen years ago from the bedroom she shared with her twin sister.
Mina McCreery’s life has been defined by the intense and ongoing public interest in her sister’s case. Now an anxious and reclusive adult, Mina lives alone on her family’s sunbaked destocked sheep farm. The million-dollar reward her mother established to solve the disappearance has never been paid out. With no evidence to go on, no footprints, no tyre tracks, no fingerprints, simply no child, can this case ever be cracked?
Enter Lane Holland, a private investigator who dropped out of the police academy to earn a living cracking cold cases. Lane has his eye on the unclaimed money, to pay for his sister’s university fees, but he also has darker motivations for wanting to solve the case.
Compulsively readable, with an unforgettable setting and cast of characters, WAKE is a powerful, unsparing story of how trauma ripples outward when people’s private tragedies become public property, and how it’s never too late for the truth to set things right.
WAKE has already caused quite a stir. It won the CWA Debut Dagger Award in 2019 and was shortlisted for the Kill Your Darlings Unpublished Manuscript Award and the Bath Novel Award. It’s one of those rare titles that everyone in the office is lining up to read. It truly is an exceptional debut, well worth the hype around it.
Burr is an assured writer. WAKE is tightly plotted, complex and atmospheric. The characters are all compelling, but Mina is particularly fascinating. Introverted, defensive, her life has been irrevocably changed and shaped by her twin’s disappearance. Her private tragedy is public property, cleverly highlighted through Burr’s use of online chat rooms and crime forums.
This a searing debut crime novel where the grief and guilt surrounding an unsolved disappearance still haunt a small farming community… and will ultimately lead to a reckoning. WAKE is one of the best crimes thrillers I’ve read in a long time – and there’s a lot of competition in this genre. It certainly indicates that Shelly Burr is an author to watch, and I’m eagerly awaiting what comes next for her. No pressure.
hooked me 1st 5 hours got mushy and slowed next 2 1/2 by 7 1/2 lost interest totally. might have done better if i read it in my accustomed 3 or 4 hours. as an audiobook it ran way too long . . . so who killed or abducted or what ever who? ya lost me . . . ps have a word with the ab people. i suspect they ruined a good story