Wonder Valley by Rhys Stalba-Smith
Rhys Stalba-Smith
4 Stars
Pages: 347
Published: 24 Oct 2021
Publisher's Blurb
It’s never just a kidnapping…
Thirty years is a long time to wait for truth.
A longer time to run.
But thirty bodies are a lot to grieve for, and for the town of Nowhey, home to the infamous Wonder Valley Massacre of the sixties, the waiting is about to end.
In the third novel of the State of Affairs series, we again leave the city for wide haunting spaces of South Australia. Where everyone knows everyone and knows what’s going on. Or at least they think so.
That is until one of their own ends up dead, an apparent suicide, that once the digging begins becomes more sinister. For ex-detective Will Davidson, it’s been years since he investigated anything other than the emptiness of a strong bottle of liquor. But then this isn’t just another investigation, this was his father. And he was working on something big, something dangerous. Something with hands all the way back to Will’s childhood, when the massacre was fresh on the town’s mind and he only knew one thing, that he was leaving Nowhey for good.
Wonder Valley is an un-put-downable thriller that will leave you gasping for breath. Crime has never been this close to home, or this dangerous, so grab the page-turner before it gets buried along with the bodies...
Review
When Will Davidson returns to his old home town in South
Australia on the death of his estranged policeman father he gets dragged into
an investigation that was his dad was working on right until he died in
suspicious circumstances on the outskirts of the old Wonder Valley Commune
which 30 years ago was the scene of a mass cult-like suicide.
Rhys Stalba-Smith’s third novel in his State of Affairs
series is a dark psychological thriller that gradually teases the reader with
clues to what happened 30 years ago and who might be responsible for both Will’s
father’s death and the sporadic disappearance of young women traveling through
Nowhey over the intervening years
The plot grabs you from the start and takes you through a
tense and exhausting drama as Will inches closer to the truth that has lay
hidden in Nowhey for decades.
I’ve read all three books in the series and this is easily
the most tightly plotted of the three. As the story unfolds it entices you to
read just one more page which is likely to see you reading long after bedtime.
The book accelerates towards a shattering conclusion as the
awful truth about Wonder Valley is revealed.
A well written thriller that is difficult to put down
The Author
Born in Adelaide, South Australia Rhys has always been infatuated with stories and storytelling. After years of reading and scribbling in some form of practice, he studied the craft of writing at university and millions of words later, he’s come to understand that he still doesn’t know much about it.
Now living in France, he remembers home by writing about where he came from, the characters that live there, and the places he’s seen on the vast island that is Australia. His ideas, be they sci-fi, crime, and every horrifying thing in between, often come while out walking the dog or taking public transport
More by Rhys Stalba-Smith
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