Police drama set in Australia – Bitter Wash Road by Garry Disher

Submitted: 5th April 2020

Bitter Wash Australian crime

Police drama set in Australia – Bitter Wash Road by Garry Disher – Welcome to Tiverton – small town Australia. It’s dusty, remote and peaceful, right? A cop from the city might welcome a change to come and work here, right? Even if he’d been forced to for having been a whistle blower back in the city.

Well, not so much. THIS outback town is not where you want to have to rely on a sense of community. Not even the police can help you. The police in fact could very well be the problem….

Police drama set in Australia – Bitter Wash Road by Garry Disher

Setting: A small Australian town

Police drama set in Australia – Bitter Wash Road by Garry Disher

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Police drama set in Australia – Bitter Wash Road by Garry Disher

If you love your Australian fiction, then you’re going to love this. A city cop, shunned by his colleagues for having been a whistle blower is sent to small town Tiverton (fictional thank goodness) He soon realises that quiet does not always mean calm though and the local police here are little more than a thuggish gang.

You see there are things happening in Tiverton and people are willing to kill to keep it secret. A girl has been killed, supposedly knocked down by a car. Straight forward investigation then? Nope. Then there’s a the apparent suicide of a middle aged woman…..

What seems to be a straight-forward case soon turns out not to be.Welcome to Tiverton’s police corruption and abuse of power. Then what about the level of violence threats, domestic violence and more? Tiverton may be in the outback but if you’re there for real, you might want to back out and stay there. Just the fictional setting mind, not the novel as THAT is darn good and gritty crime fiction.

Through in some fantastically complex and dark characters, more foreboding than you can shake a stick at and you have a fine example of small-town noir Tiverton style. Bitter Wash Road is a fine title for this book. When you see how fast the situation escalates, the bitterness which washes over the town and the region in general….

The escalation of events, the way things spiral out of control makes for some very fast reading and you to get to work alongside Hirsh as he experiences a range of extreme emotions at every stage of the investigation. A great character. I am looking forward to getting to know him better in future books.

Then there’s the setting – small town Australia, dusty outback community, claustrophobic and remote. Deadly but it’s not the snakes and bugs this time but the other more human creatures that could kill.

Recommended for a virtual booktrail only ha!