Pip Fioretti, Bone Lands

For the May Crime Stack, Affirm Press has kindly offered 20 copies of Bone Lands by Sydney writer, Pip Fioretti.

1911, on a winter’s night in arid New South Wales wool country, mounted trooper Augustus Hawkins discovers the bodies of three young people. They are scions of the richest family in the district, savagely murdered on a road that Hawkins should have been patrolling, had he not been busy bedding the local schoolteacher.

Detectives arrive from Sydney and the disgraced Hawkins, a traumatised veteran of the Boer War, comes under fierce scrutiny. With his honour and sanity at stake, he becomes hell-bent on finding the murderer. But as ever darker secrets are revealed about the people he thinks of as friends, Hawkins is forced to confront an uncomfortable question: who is paying the price for the new nation’s prosperity? 

This reviewer is right on the money. “Hawkins is a terrifically authentic character and this is high quality writing – sharp and descriptive – that doesn’t flinch or look away.”

Pip Fioretti has a professional background in visual arts, both practice, and teaching, and took up writing fiction in 2008. She has had three books published in Women’s Fiction with Hachette Australia and Pan MacMillan. Bone Lands represents a change of genre and one she’ll probably stick with.

More info here.

The Crime Stack is a benefit for Sisters in Crime members. Every month there are 20 books to win in a random draw of members.

Join now and be in the running for a complimentary paperback copy of The Accident.