Dead Horse Gap
Reviewed By Janet Mawdesley February 15, 2022
Author Lee Christine
Distributor: Allen & Unwin
ISBN: 9781761066078
Publisher: Allen & Unwin
Release Date: February 2022
Website: https://www.allenandunwin.com
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Dead Horse Gap sees Lee Christine returning to the Snowy Mountains once again, this time to investigate the death of a pilot on the remote Khancoban airstrip. How did a tractor get parked in the middle of the small airstrip and what was the pilot doing flying on a night which was registered as a blizzard? What was so important that it could not wait until morning or the weather cleared.
Detective Mitchell Flowers is sent to investigate; he’s has had too little sleep, it is seriously cold, and he is hungry! As this is his first solo case, Peirce Ryder being involved with a Court case and Sterling being undercover, not all that far from the accident site, he is determined not to overlook a thing.
And so begins another absolutely page turning ‘who done it’ as Sterling is trying to find the link between the brutal bashing of drug dealer Scruffy Freidman, whose body was found floating face down the Thredbo River some six months previously, and the drug ‘king pins’ ferrying drugs into the region.
Ryder has his own issues as this looks like his last case before he moves on to country policing, something that troubles him, but a decision that he is not prepared to change as he is committed to the love of his life Vanessa. He is keen to hand over to Flowers who he is learning is a through detective.
The plot twists and turns as much as the roads to through the high country, as the more Flowers looks into what appears to be a lot of very disparate events, the more confusing it seems to be that someone would deliberately place a tractor in the middle of the airstrip, knowing full well who was flying in that night.
A family feud comes to light in the small community of Khancoban which has been thinly papered over by the modern generation, a land development is well underway which also involves the members of the two families involved with White Winter Station, and secrets are carefully kept close to the chest.
Running throughout the story is a possible romance being kept alive between Flowers and Stirling as she checks in with him every evening, which for both of them holds mixed feeling. Flowers because he would like a more positive relationship to develop. Stirling is not happy at all as they work in the same team and she has worked so hard to leave a bad rap behind her and make her mark as a serious detective.
Another slice of intrigue has been added as Flowers is always so tired, never wants to go to dinner with Eva, renown for her culinary skills, as is Flowers renowned for his eating ability, Ryder, Vanessa and Jack. What is it that is keeping him up so late into the night?
All these many aspects begin to come together in an explosive finale which will see a family shattered, a life threatened and the basis for the next story laid.