Bay of Fires
A Novel
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4.0 • 3 Ratings
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- $9.99
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- $9.99
Publisher Description
Sarah Avery's reckless behavior has cost her a job, her boyfriend, and the independence she desperately craves. Reluctantly home for the holidays in the Bay of Fires, a tiny seaside town on the Tasmanian coast, she hopes for a calm, quiet visit, with time to reflect on all that's gone wrong. Those hopes are crushed when, early one morning, she discovers the body of a young female backpacker washed up on the shore.
A year earlier, another woman went missing and hasn't been seen since. Now everyone wonders: is there a killer in the brush? Or were these women victims of Tasmania itself? The island is place of savage beauty: pristine sand beneath orange-lichen covered granite boulders; heaving shadowy kelp fields; sweeping cold currents; crackling bush beyond the seashore. It's also a landscape as flawed, vulnerable and vengeful as any human. Once its fragile peace is shattered, the locals' anxiety fuels a string of speculations about happened to the women - and who might be the next victim.
When journalist Hall Flynn arrives to investigate, haunted by recent failures and yearning for a fresh start, he's determined to do whatever it takes to break the story, and Sarah is his best source of local information. But Sarah - like everyone else in this close-knit town - has secrets she's desperate to keep hidden. And one of those secrets leads straight to a killer's door.
Haunting, evocative, as wildly atmospheric as the remote island where it takes place, Bay of Fires is a startling and wholly original debut.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
There is not one palatable character in Gee's debauched murder mystery set on the Bay of Fires on Australia's Tasmania coast, a clever way to ensure that each is a suspect in the deaths of two young women. Sarah Avery, home for Christmas after beating her boyfriend bloody and walking out on her job, finds the body of a young backpacker washed up on the shore. When she questions the disappearance of another young woman who went missing the summer before, she begins to mistrust the odd assortment of folks she's known forever in her parents' beach community: the nosy shopkeeper, the middle-aged vamp and her horny son, the weathered innkeeper who smokes too much, and redneck campers who return year after year. The investigative journo who shows up to report on the crimes is a middle-aged scaredy-cat, a terrible driver who has to be drunk to muster the courage to be with a woman. But he falls for our hard-drinking, tough-girl heroine and just might end up saving the day. Gee's debut follows some shopworn formulas: lots of red herrings, dead ends, and suspicious behavior by everyone, including the village misfit who bears the brunt of the community's fears. And there is a titillating whiff of sexual violence. It's a testament to this writer's diligent story building, however, that we endure so much blustery weather, spitting, vomiting, inebriation, slimy fish guts, and sand in the shoes to find out who done it.
