Solid Gold

Detective Sergeant Ivan Lucic and Detective Senior Constable Nell Buchanan are back for their fourth outing in Chris Hammer's The Valley (2024). Still based in Dubbo, the homicide investigation team are used to travelling across the Central West of New South Wales to manage complex cases. This time, they are sent further afield, down to the Southern Tablelands, when a body is discovered.

Told in alternating timelines, in the 1990s we meet a young police officer Simmons Burnside. Stationed in the Valley, caught up in a protest between environmentalists and loggers, Burnside also moonlights as security at the historic gold mine, which a local couple is trying to restart in an effort to revive the town. Back in the present, the body discovered is Burnside's son Wolf - an entrepreneur with plans to commercialise the Valley. Was he killed to stop his proposed development? For political reasons? For money?

Lucic is told by head office that they should not trust local law enforcement, so they proceed with caution. During the investigation Nell learns that her birth mother once lived in the Valley. This unforeseen connection to the case rattles Nell. Fortunately Lucic has her back, and the colleagues have a trust and confidence in each other that allows them to do their jobs exceptionally well.

Like all of Hammer's novels, the location plays a central role. The Valley is vividly portrayed - from its natural beauty, to its quirky inhabitants - and it feels very much like a real place. There are multiple issues at play in both the historic and contemporary timeframes in this well researched novel. 

I really enjoy the Lucic/Buchanan series and have grown fond of these characters. Hammer has a way of weaving various story threads together which build pace and page-turning excitement. Unlike his previous novels, in The Valley Hammer shifted his narrative in the 1990s to give us a first person account from Burnside's perspective. This was a great way of signalling the change in timeline to the reader and giving a fresh look on activities that would become important thirty years later. 

I hope Hammer continues the Lucic/Buchanan series as it is so enjoyable. While The Valley can be read as a standalone book, readers will get more out of it if they start at the beginning of the series.

My reviews of other Chris Hammer novels are available on this blog: 

• the Martin Scarsden Series - Scrublands (2018); Silver (2019); Trust (2020);
• the Lucic/Buchanan Series -   Treasure and Dirt (2021), The Tilt (2022) and The Seven (2023). 

For readers outside Australia, the Lucic/Buchanan novels are published under different titles - look for Opal Country (Treasure and Dirt), Dead Man's Creek (The Tilt) and Cover the Bones (The Seven) instead.