Gemma Guillory has lived in Rainier her entire life. She knows the tiny town's ins and outs like the back of her hand, the people like they are her family, their quirks as if they were her own.
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She knows her once-charming town is now remembered for one reason, and one reason only. That three innocent people died. That the last stop on the Rainier Ripper's trail of death fifteen years ago was her innocuous little tea shop. She knows that the consequences of catching the Ripper still haunt her police officer husband and their marriage to this day and that some of her neighbours are desperate - desperate enough to welcome a dark tourism company keen to cash in on Rainier's reputation as the murder town.
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When the tour operator is killed by a Ripper copycat on Gemma's doorstep, the unease that has lurked quietly in the original killer's wake turns to foreboding, and she's drawn into the investigation. Unbeknownst to her, so is a prisoner named Lane Holland.
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Gemma knows her town. She knows her people. Doesn't she?
From the award winning author of mega-bestseller WAKE
My Story
Shelley Burr grew up on Newcastle's beaches and her grandparents' property in Glenrowan, and on the road between the two. When not writing, Shelley is working to establish a small permaculture farm and is studying agriculture at the University of New England, with a focus on soil science. She is an alumnus of the ACT Writers' Hardcopy program (2018) and a Varuna fellow.
WAKE was a Top Five bestseller, won the CWA Debut Dagger Award in 2019, was shortlisted for the Indie Book Awards Debut Novel Award, the Kill Your Darlings Unpublished Manuscript Award and the Bath Novel Award. Shelley also won the ABIA's 2023 Matt Richell Award for New Writer of the Year for WAKE.
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In The Press
'Politically savvy, cleverly plotted . . . the kind of book that invites the ravenous language of binge reading: compulsive, propulsive, addictive'
NEW YORK TIMES BOOK REVIEW
