The Bluffs by Kyle Perry

Ex Sydney detective, Con Badenhorst, has been sidelined to Tasmania where it is hoped the traumas of his last case will be muted. However he is sent to look for a group of missing schoolgirls who have been camping in the wilderness.

The town of Limestone Creek is steeped in stories from the past. Young girls have gone missing before, never to be found. The townsfolk are all too ready to take the law into their own hands and mete out "local justice".

The four missing girls have very different backgrounds. Georgia Lenah is aboriginal and is eager to promote her heritage and stories of the Tiers which her people call Kooparoona Niara. Jasmine is the daughter of Murphy, the local grower of weed, and shares the house with her uncle Butch. Cierra and her twin sister Madison have a comfortable life in a luxurious house. Cierra is missing, but how much does Madison know and who is she manipulating. Lastly there is Bree Wilkins who has not come to terms with the suicide of her friend Denni.

Con has to overcome his own demons, compromised local police officers and the prejudices of the locals to get to the truth and hopefully find the girls alive. But the legend of the Hungry Man is at the forefront of people's minds. It seems as if he is on the move again.

Kyle Perry has woven a complex narrative where the Tasmanian wilderness plays a key role. The climate is changeable and unforgiving as is the rugged terrain of the high country. There is a a cast of characters both local and from Hobart who are at odds with one another and cannot cooperate. It is Madison with her group of online followers who seems to be manipulating events to ensure her popularity and sense of power over her peer group. But with the deaths of two of the girls is Madison really capable of such drastic measures?

This is an impressive first novel for Perry, and he obviously writes with a sense of knowledge not only for the Tasmanian landscape but of the head sets of school age students and of how isolated communities react in times of stress.

Mark Knight

Themes: Tasmania, Isolation, Missing children, Crime fiction.