- Hooks you from the start. A mass murder by a young priest. Cool.
- Well written - the author is a long time journalist after all. And this is a story of journalism as much as anything else. The moral quandaries good professional journalists often face in attempting to uncover the facts and do justice to the story, while under pressure to meet a deadline. It's also a contest between Fairfax and Channel ten - quality and tabloid.
- Very well paced. As the plot thickens the unsophisticated and provincial town’s inhabitants get much more interesting and intriguing. And the author has, rather appropriately, bestowed on them colourful monikers: Mandalay Blonde, Harley Snouch, Byron Swift, Doug Thunkleton, Codger Harris, D’Arcy Defoe, Winifred Barbicombe and more. It’s straight out of Harry Potter’s Hogwarts.
- There’s a supremely well written bushfire sequence. Absolutely brings home the horror of being caught in the middle of such a ferocious disaster.
- And country NSW is in the middle of a devastating drought. A narrative for our times.
- By the end it’s become a quite complicated story, with many elements and players interlocking. But the resolution is absolutely right and gratifying.
- An absorbing read.
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