HEADLAND

A gritty and genuinely propulsive novel that keeps you guessing till the very end.

The coastal hamlet of Gloster is on floodwatch: it's been raining for a month, the river is about to break its banks, and there is only one road in and out. There has been a double fatality on a country road, Laura Sweeney and her father John, and it soon becomes clear their deaths were no accident. Laura's best friend Tayla has also gone missing, and her mother is sure someone has taken Tayla. However, leading Sergeant Thomas Philby doesn't seem to care, biding his time until he can retire in six months. Constables Ellie Cameron and Larissa Brookes can't solve the case on their own. Detective Constable Craig Watson, a boarderline alcoholic who is addicted to prescription pills and has a history of abuse at the hands of his girlfriend's mother, arrives in Gloster to replace Constable Alan Bishop and help investigate the mysterious murders. The river breaks its banks much earlier than it should, and while most of the inhabitants have been evacuated, Watson, Cameron, and Brookes are left behind, trapped in Gloster by the flood, without power, radio or phone coverage. As the water continues to rise, the constables believe they see Tayla but she disappears again. Then Ellie Cameron goes missing. There is blood and signs of a struggle, and Watson realises that Laura and John Sweeney's killer might be trapped in Gloster with them. When Watson and Brookes find some disturbing photographs of Laura Sweeney bound and naked, their investigation leads them back to Alan Bishop and Sergeant Philby, revealing possible corruption within the local police force. Desperate to find Tayla and Cameron and survive the floods, Watson and Brookes must track down the killer if they are to make it out alive. Born in Sydney, John Byrnes moved to Mid North Coast of New South Wales with his wife and three children in 2012. He has a broad range of life experience having spent time in the Australian Army, worked fishing trawlers out of Darwin, worked bars and doors in pubs and clubs all over Australia, and somehow ended up with an Economics Degree. He started writing in 2015 and has a fascination with the darker aspects of the human condition; the addicted, the malevolent, the scarred. He cheers for the outsider, the slacker, the contrarian, the non-conformist.