THE DROWNING GIRLS, by Veronica Lando (HarperCollins, $34.99)
Port Flinders is a sad and shabby seaside town in Queensland. It is stinking hot and conceals a cesspit of sordid secrets. In what passes for the town, at the laundromat once again “someone’s pissing in one of your washing machines”. The place has one attraction: the annual “festival” of the creepy commemoration to markjust a bit of fun. But there is a 25-year-old mystery: the tragic drowning of a local teenager who died while trying, and failing, to save a young girl. The tragedy had an upside for the town: the fish came back. A relief teacher, Nate, arrives in town. He becomes entangled in trying to solve that old mystery, and a new one – another drowning. A bonza yarn all the way to its tricky, twisty end.
