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Summary
In an isolated country town brought to its knees by endless drought, a charismatic and dedicated young priest calmly opens fire on his congregation, killing five parishioners before being shot dead himself.A year later, troubled journalist Martin Scarsden arrives in Riversend to write a feature on the anniversary of the tragedy. But the stories he hears from the locals about the priest and incidents leading up to the shooting don’t fit with the accepted version of events his own newspaper reported in an award-winning investigation. Martin
can’t ignore his doubts, nor the urgings of some locals to unearth the real reason behind the priest’s deadly rampage.Just as Martin believes he is making headway, a shocking new development rocks the town, which becomes the biggest story in Australia. The media descends on Riversend and Martin is now the one in the spotlight. His reasons for investigating the shooting have suddenly become very personal.Wrestling with his own demons, Martin finds himself risking everything to discover a truth that becomes darker and more complex with every twist. But there are powerful forces determined to stop him, and he has no idea how far they will go to make sure the town’s secrets stay buried.
Comments
For the most part, we enjoyed this book. It had us engaged from the first chapter. A priest in a rural community, is seen welcoming his parishioners before his Sunday services, enters the church to don his robes, he returns five minutes later, holding a hunting rifle. Killing five people, one of whom he was just seen greeting with a warm smile and a friendly handshake. What could they have been discussing?
Scrublands is well written, and we liked the small insight into how the media, and in a particular a newspaper journalist works. We loved the side characters and all their backstories, from single mum, Manadalay Blonde, to town recluse, Codger Harris. However, it seemed to lose it’s way a little towards the end. There seemed to be a lot going on in a small, rural town.
Overall, we liked Scrublands and look forward to reading the next book in this series, Silver.
7.5/10
Read by Cultcha Club Book Club
Recently arrived and notables, a selection of books that arrived on the shelves in June.
Remember, if we don’t have a new title you would like to read you can always suggest we buy it! We will do our best to fulfil your request, and if purchased we place it on Hold for you.
Happy browsing!
Fiction
Non-Fiction
For the Kids
Fans of Australian authors received a treat late last year when Claudia Karvan embarked on a literary journey to celebrate our love of books, met some of our most beloved and brilliant writers, and explored our Australian identity through the place, its people and the power of our stories in ‘Books that made us’ from the ABC. In this 3 episode series Claudia highlighted a diverse range of both modern and past Australian classic stories. The series is available to stream for free via iview so why not (re)watch the series and be inspired to read one or more of the amazing titles featured. The Library has all of the books mentioned in the show available for reserve, simply click on a cover or title. Continue reading