by Tanya Scott
Publisher: Allen & Unwin, 2025
Review
By Carol Woeltjes
‘Every choice, every decision, came at a price.’
Welcome to Stillwater a place of crisp fog, icy water, mud and blood, but also a place of beauty, wealth, obligation and poverty. Contradictory, yes, but also the perfect conditions for a little exploitation and, well, murder.
The main players.
Luke, a disability support worker struggling to make ends met while studying in the hope of a more prosperous future. His home is the size of a shoebox and furnished with the flotsam and jetsam of his neighbours’ lives.
Jonathan, a wealthy developer whose tailor-made suits dangle from him as if he were a coat hanger. He lives in a large neo-Georgian home surrounded by security, but is struggling to manage the needs of his son, Phil, and not turn his daughter, Emma, against him.
Gus, a man of strict Christian beliefs when it comes to family, but also someone who inhabits the shadier side of life and gets what he wants by any means necessary.
Stillwater characters are so full of life I often felt like I could influence their behaviour if I just had a stern word or offered a hug. And it’s not just the main players, those in secondary roles are equally detailed and intriguing.
The narrative follows Luke, a compelling complex character whose morality and mortality are obvious from the start. Early on I had so many questions about how Luke found himself in Gus’s orbit, but the dual timeline drip feeds you snippets until you come to understand and see just how unscrupulous people can be, even when it comes to children.
Stillwater forces you to ask questions like: what makes a good guy good and a bad guy bad? Can they be the same person? Are bad guys made? Can people change? And what would you do?
It also forces you to wonder about how Stillwater is Tanya Scott’s debut novel. The way she slowly amps up the tension and weaves in the heartbreaking backstory is skilful and all-consuming. Her use of overlapping themes is masterfully handled: betrayal and lies alongside compassion and care, greed and arrogance next to need and truth. And those characters; simply astounding.
Publisher’s blurb
The most explosive Australian debut of 2025. A gritty Melbourne crime thriller where old secrets collide with deadly new threats. For fans of Jane Harper and Lee Child.
He came home for peace. Melbourne’s underworld has other plans.
Luke Harris has worked hard to bury his violent past. Now he’s back in Melbourne, chasing a quiet life, a normal job, his own house and a dog.
But Luke’s old life isn’t done with him. When he crosses paths with Gus Alberici, the ruthless crime boss he once served as a teenager, he’s pulled back into the dark world of his past. Luke’s father has vanished, along with a bag of Gus’s cash, and his new girlfriend’s father is acting strangely.
As secrets surface and danger closes in, Luke must outsmart a man who will stop at nothing to get what he wants. Fans of Chris Hammer, Jane Harper and Lee Child will love this thrilling and full of heart debut.