A riveting new novel of rural suspense from the bestselling Voice of the Outback.
With the sickening realisation that his cover has been blown, Detective Dave Burrows knows his family is in serious danger from the vicious stock thieves and murderers, Bulldust and his brother Scotty.
Devastating news brings Dave back to Barrabine, where circumstances force him to question his determination to stay in the police force. How could he live with himself if anything happened to Mel and the kids?
Mel, understandably frightened, must decide who she'll listen to. Can she trust Dave to handle this threat hanging over their family, or is her father right to argue that she should leave her marriage immediately?
With her acclaimed skill for tension and drama, Fleur McDonald has delivered another richly compelling story in Something to Hide.
Praise for Red Dirt Country
'McDonald's knowledge and experience of farming ensures the authenticity of setting and characters ... an engaging mystery.' Book'd Out
A riveting new novel of rural suspense from the bestselling Voice of the Outback.
1980: Rose and Ian Kelly arrive in the small South Australian town of Barker for supplies, before driving a further couple of hundred kilometres to begin shearing at Jacksonville Station. Rose, heavily pregnant with their first babies, worries that despite Ian's impending fatherhood he remains a drifter who dreams of the open road.
2020: When the Australian Federal Police swoop unheralded into Barker and make a shocking arrest for possession of narcotics, Detective Dave Burrows is certain there is more to the story than meets the eye.
After many months of grief over her brother's illness and death, journalist Zara Ellison is finally ready to begin a new chapter of her life and make a commitment to her boyfriend, Senior Constable Jack Higgins. But when she's assigned to investigate the Barker arrest, Jack begins to believe that Zara is working against him.
It takes a series of unconnected incidents in Zara's digging to reveal an almost forgotten thread of mystery as to how these two events, forty years apart, could be connected.
Praise for Red Dirt Country
'A gripping, powerful story.' Blue Wolf Reviews
'McDonald's understanding of farming life is effortlessly drawn . . . another great book . . . McDonald leaves us on the edge of our seat.' Debbish.com
'Engaging mystery and authentic rural setting.' Book'd Out
Red Dirt Country features the thrilling return of Detective Dave Burrows, now a member of the stock squad in Western Australia.
Recovering from an undercover case in outback Queensland, Dave Burrows finally returns to Perth, to join his pregnant wife, Melinda, and their small daughter, Bec. Things have been off-kilter between Mel and Dave for some time and nothing he says or does seems to make it right. Once Dave starts waking violently in the dark nights, reliving the horrors of the Queensland job, Mel issues an ultimatum. But Dave's work, despite its dangers, means everything to him. He's finally achieved his long-held dream and is now a Detective Senior Constable in the stock squad. And as soon as his shoulder wound is declared fully healed, Dave jumps into an investigation of stock theft in the north of Australia. There's a standoff between two stations and a history of disappearances and grief to uncover. It's also a long way away from his problems with Mel. With the prospect of going back to Queensland to give evidence as a protected witness, a dangerously ruthless enemy on the loose, and a family to protect, Dave's first experience on the stock squad is deep in an underbelly of racial divide with family secrets, long-repeated lies, kidnapping and murder.
Praise for the author:
"Nobody does rural fiction quite like Fleur McDonald." THE WEEKLY TIMES
"Engaging and well-paced, Without a Doubt was devoured quicker than my Easter chocolate. Fleur McDonald has a wealth of farming experience and she employs that knowledge to pen a tale of small communities, mustering and stock losses." BEAUTY AND LACE
"McDonald writes a riveting rural crime story that had me grabbing for the book every spare minute I had." THE BURGEONING BOOKSHELF
When twenty-five-year-old journalist, Zara Ellison receives her mother's ominous text message, Call me when you can, Zara knows it's not good news.
Two weeks later, Zara has left her much-loved city life to relocate to Barker, the sleepy country town in which she grew up. For Zara, family comes first.
But she needs to work too, and the town's police force is a rural journalist's best source of information. Meeting Detective Dave Burrows and Dave's second-in-charge, Senior Constable Jack Higgins, is a priority.
Amid her family's troubles, and reporting on farming accidents and violently clashing activists, Zara is shocked to witness Jack Higgins in a role she'd never have believed. How could he possibly justify this? And what was she going to do about it?
Wrapped in the love of family, friendship, crime and mystery, Starting From Now is another compelling novel from the authentic voice of Fleur McDonald.
With nothing else to lose Detective Dave Burrows volunteers for the most dangerous mission of his life.
When Dave joined the forced he couldn't have foreseen the toll it would take on family life. Dave's wife, Melinda is unhappy about being left alone so much to raise their eighteen-month-old daughter, Bec. His interfering father-in-law isn't helping. He never thought he was good enough for his daughter and is not shy about telling Dave what he's doing wrong.
When things come to a head at home, Dave's policing mate, Spencer, comes up with a plan. In a bid to search for the link between a murdered man and illegal stock trading Dave must put himself on the wrong side of the law. Dave knows what he's risking. If he's found out, he'll never see Melinda or Bec again. Far from saving his marriage, he could lose it all.
Nine years ago, thirty-year-old Chelsea Taylor left the small country town of Barker to rise to the top as a concert pianist. Yet here she was, back again with her four-year-old daughter, Aria, readying herself to face her father, Tom. The father who'd shouted down the phone nine years ago never to come home again.
With an uneasy truce developing, Chelsea and Aria settle into the rhythm of life on the land with Tom and Cal, the farmhand, who seems already to have judged Chelsea badly. Until a shocking discovery is made on the riverbed and Detective Dave Burrows, the local copper, has to tear back generations of family stories to reveal the secrets of the past.
When newly badged Detective Dave Burrows arrives in the West Australian goldsfield town of Barrabine - a town where prospectors live by their own tough rules - it's exactly where he wants to be. But Melinda, his wife of two weeks, is devastated at leaving behind her family, friends and career. As Dave investigates reports of mysterious late-night trespassing, a missing person, and guns being drawn on strangers, he must navigate his way in a town where prospectors live by their own rules and find a way to keep his marriage from falling apart.
When Brianna Donahue was three years old, her mother mysteriously disappeared while farming in Merriwell Bay, Western Australia. Now she works the same land while almost single-handedly raising her two children, and when her son goes missing she is forced to face the fact her marriage has huge cracks in it. Meanwhile, over two thousand kilometres away in South Australia, Detective Dave Burrows sets off on an investigation that will impact Brianna's world and test her relationships with those she loves most.
Lauren Ramsey is so concerned about the welfare of a boy in her kindy class she doesn't realise her own daughter, Skye, needs help. At fourteen Skye finds the only person who will listen to her problems is Tamara Thompson, the manager of her favourite clothes shop. Tamara knows what it's like to be a troubled teen and despite her successful career and loving partner, her sense of worthlessness still threatens to overwhelm her... Sometimes you have to resolve the past before you can face the future...
Fiona is devastated when her husband Charlie commits suicide after the accidental shooting of his friend. Though Fiona decides to keep farming their successful property, rumours that she intends to sell keep circulating. When Detective Burrows arrives to sign off on the investigation into Eddie's death, his suspicions are aroused by some strange anomalies at the scene. As Dave becomes increasingly convinced that something sinister is going on, Fiona finds herself dealing with a series of disasters at the farm...
When Ashleigh decides to flee her controlling husband, Dominic, she knows he'll hunt her down. The only way to escape is to disappear and reinvent herself. Moving to the tiny rural town of Blinman, one day she visits a ruined homestead in the area and becomes fascinated by the people who lived there during the nineteenth century. But just as she begins to unlock the secrets of her own past, Dominic arrives in town, determined to punish her...
Flushed with triumph on the evening of the best rodeo in the town's history, Amelia is driving the bags of cash into town when she becomes the victim of a terrifying smash and grab. Injured and distraught after her ordeal, Amelia must convince a skeptical detective that her account of what happened does add up and that he must help her track down the real culprits...
