Darcy Tindale

 The Fall Between

by

Darcy Tindale

In a small town full of secrets, the past never stays buried.

When twelve-year-old Kayleen Ellis vanishes from her home in the rural town of Muswellbrook, Detective Rebecca Giles is called to investigate. Within hours, she's hailed a hero – the case is closed, the missing girl is found and a string of local burglaries have been solved.

But the celebration doesn't last long. The next morning, the body of a young farmhand is discovered floating in a cattle trough. Giles must uncover answers to this brutal death, and she soon starts to suspect a connection between the disappearance, the murder and her mother's mysterious drowning thirty years ago.

Now, in a community where loyalties run deep and grudges last generations, Giles must face the ghosts of her past before the killer strikes again.

Jewellery theft and a body dumped in a water trough mark only the opening salvo for Detective Rebecca Giles.  

She’s assaulted at the murder scene, nearly drowned, and the attacker escapes. Shaken and injured, Giles pins the blame on the wrong man. Then there’s Sticky Pete, forever hovering at the edges of the investigation, desperate for her attention. When a young girl turns up dead, the question becomes unavoidable: is a serial predator moving through their rural patch?

Tindale delivers a tight, well‑paced story, and Giles herself is a compelling mix of grit, trauma, and stubborn resolve. The plot keeps twisting right up to the final chapters, making full use of the Australian rural‑crime resurgence.

It wasn’t my top pick in the genre, but it was solid, engaging, and absolutely worth the read. 4/5.