Lonesome Highway

Australian noir is a popular genre - gritty crime thrillers set in a harsh and isolated landscape, drawing on gothic themes. As an avid reader of Garry Disher, Chris Hammer, Jane Harper and Hayley Scrivenor I am always on the lookout for a new Aussie noir to sink my teeth into. I have often seen Margaret Hickey's novels in bookstores alongside Hammer and Harper and thought I would check her out. 

Cutters End (2021), Margaret Hickey's debut novel, is set in remote South Australia. It's 2021 and Detective Sergeant Mark Ariti has been called back from his leave, assigned to a cold case. Thirty years ago a burnt corpse was found in the outback, 300 kilometres outside Cutters End. Long thought to be an accidental death, a high profile celebrity has been pushing for the case to be reopened, believing Michael Denby's death to be a murder. Ariti interviews the celebrity in her Bronte beachfront home, and then heads to Cutters End. With the help of local cop, Jadeep Kaur, Ariti pulls back the layers on this cold case and finds that he has a connection to a pair of hitchhikers - Ingrid and Joanne - who were in the area on New Year's Eve 1989 when the man was last seen alive. Will the fact that he dated Ingrid decades ago help or hinder his investigation?

The atmosphere is moody and readers cannot help but think of the Belangalo backpackers murders and the disappearance of Peter Falconio. Hickey capitalises on the location to bring a sense of foreboding to the story. Lots of people have gone missing in the outback, disappearing without a trace in the harsh landscape, through misadventure or malice. Like Hammer and Harper, Hickey has portrayed a strong sense of time and place. One of the things I loved about this novel was the Australian colloquialisms and slang which are peppered throughout the book.

Cutters End is a solid debut novel. It is a well crafted police procedural, with interesting characters. Ariti is not immediately likeable, so I will be interested to see how his character evolves in subsequent novels. Hickey has written two more books in the Ariti series - Stone Town (2022) and Broken Bay (2023), along with other novels The Creeper (2024), An Ill Wind (2025) and Cold River (2026).