Gemma Guillory has lived in Rainier her entire life. She knows the tiny town’s ins and outs like the back of her hand, the people like they are her family, their quirks as if they were her own.
She knows her once-charming town is now remembered for one reason, and one reason only. That three innocent people died. That the last stop on the Rainier Ripper’s trail of death fifteen years ago was her innocuous little tea shop. She knows that the consequences of catching the Ripper still haunt her police officer husband and their marriage to this day and that some of her neighbours are desperate – desperate enough to welcome a dark tourism company keen to cash in on Rainier’s reputation as the murder town.
When the tour operator is killed by a Ripper copycat on Gemma’s doorstep, the unease that has lurked quietly in the original killer’s wake turns to foreboding, and she’s drawn into the investigation. Unbeknownst to her, so is a prisoner named Lane Holland.
Gemma knows her town. She knows her people. Doesn’t she?
PRAISE FOR WAKE:
‘Politically savvy, cleverly plotted . . . the kind of book that invites the ravenous language of binge reading: compulsive, propulsive, addictive’ NEW YORK TIMES BOOK REVIEW
‘It is hard to believe WAKE is a first novel. Plot, pacing and characterisation are so finely judged that it feels more like the work of a past master’ THE TIMES
‘WAKE is blazing its own trail. A yarn that feels so plausible and terrifying, it stays with you’ AUSTRALIAN WOMEN’S WEEKLY
‘Outstanding . . . This is both a well-plotted, gripping mystery and a sensitive exploration of the aftermath of trauma’ THE GUARDIAN
‘One of the year’s best debuts. Intriguing and compelling. Shelley Burr is a bright new talent in Australian crime fiction’ CHRIS HAMMER
‘My crime novel of the year . . . Intense and evocative, it tears at the heart-strings’ DAILY MAIL
‘We devoured this stunningly drawn, deeply compelling mystery in one day’ CRIME MONTHLY (UK)
Shelley Burr grew up on Newcastle’s beaches and her grandparents’ farm in Glenrowan, and on the road between the two. When not writing, Shelley is working to establish a small permaculture farm and is studying agriculture at the University of New England, with a focus on soil science. She is an alumnus of the ACT Writers Hardcopy program (2018) and a Varuna fellow. WAKE won the CWA Debut Dagger Award in 2019, and was shortlisted for the Indie Book Awards Debut Novel Award, the Kill Your Darlings Unpublished Manuscript Award and the Bath Novel Award. It was a Top Five bestseller. RIPPER is her second novel.
