Days End by Garry DisherSynopsis: Hirsch’s rural beat is wide. Daybreak to day’s end, dirt roads and dust. Every problem that besets small towns and isolated properties, from unlicensed driving to arson. In the time of the virus, Hirsch is seeing stresses heightened and social divisions cracking wide open. His own tolerance under strain; people getting close to the edge.

Today he’s driving an international visitor around: Janne Van Sant, whose backpacker son went missing while the borders were closed. They’re checking out his last photo site, his last employer. A feeling that the stories don’t quite add up.

Then a call comes in: a roadside fire. Nothing much—a suitcase soaked in diesel and set alight. But two noteworthy facts emerge. Janne knows more than Hirsch about forensic evidence. And the body in the suitcase is not her son’s.

My Review

Wow this was so intense, but so good! It’s the fourth book in a new favourite series that I recently discovered and binged listened to.

Set in rural South Australia, it follows the daily police beat of Constable Paul Hirschhausen. This book is set during the Covid Pandemic, and it features some of the tensions of that time, but set in out of the way small towns and desolate farmland.

I really like Paul Hirschhausen aka as Hirsch. He’s a good cop who at the beginning of the series has been ostracised to Tiverton, a very small town in South Australia, after he became a whistle blower. He’s a city cop, but  eventually finds his feet amongst the local community, dealing with all sorts of people and situations.

In this fourth book he tries to help a Belgian mother find out what happened to her missing backpacking son. He then gets called to a crime scene closer to home. Plus there’s scams, blatant racism, Covid lies and lots more going on.

I enjoyed getting to know Hirsch more, as well other characters from the previous books, feeling almost like I was catching up with old friends.

Just like in the other books there were a few different plots going on, but not too many to be overwhelming. It really did feel like I was following a rural policeman on his beat. It was so tense towards the end that I kept having to stop listening as I was convinced something terrible was going to happen!

Steve Shanahan narration’s was superb throughout the series, but I knew he would be, as he narrates the Jane Harper books.

Highly recommended if you enjoy Australian crime novels.