'A scorchingly good novel' MICHAEL ROBOTHAM'Disher is the gold standard for rural noir' CHRIS HAMMERAN ACT OF INEXPLICABLE CRUELTY. A FAMILY DESTROYED.Constable Paul Hirschhausen runs a one-cop station in the dry farming country south of the Flinders Ranges. He's still new in town but his community work - welfare checks and a light touch - is starting to pay off. Now Christmas is here and, apart from a grass fire, two boys stealing a vehicle, and Brenda Flann entering the front bar of the pub without exiting her car, Hirsch's life has been peaceful.Until he's called to an incident on Kitchener Street, a strange and vicious attack that sickens the community. And when the Sydney police ask him to look in on a family living on a forgotten back road, it doesn't look like a season of goodwill at all...'In this brilliant novel, Disher takes his readers on a harrowing journey' JOCK SERONG'There has been a lot of fuss about Australian rural noir in recent years, but few, if any, do it better than Disher' Canberra Weekly'An utterly compelling mystery with rare heart and humanity' DERVLA MCTIERNAN'Peter Temple and Garry Disher will be identified as the crime writers who redefined Australian crime fiction' Sydney Morning HeraldGarry Disher has published fifty titles across multiple genres, and is best known as Australia's King of Crime. He has won the Deutsche Krimi Preis three times, the Ned Kelly Award twice, and his novel The Sunken Road was nominated for the Booker. In 2018 he received the Ned Kelly Lifetime Achievement Award.