This is Hayley Scrivenor’s debut novel and brings a refreshing take on the small town noir crime genre. Scrivenor is a former Director Director of Wollongong Writers Festival and is originally from a small country town herself with this lived experience bringing depth and authenticity to Dirt Creek. An earlier version of Dirt Creek was shortlisted for the Penguin Literary Prize and won The Kill Your Darlings Unpublished Manuscript Award so we already know this will be a seriously well written story.
What elevates Dirt Town from the deluge of Australian small town noir novels is the exploration of how the bad things that happen to children are viewed by the children left behind. Told from different perspectives we explore the effects of a missing child on the town, a marriage, on a mother, on a friend and on the Detective tasked with finding Ester.
What elevates Dirt Town from the deluge of Australian small town noir novels is the exploration of how the bad things that happen to children are viewed by the children left behind.
- Jane Cowell
Ester Bianchi goes missing on her way home from school in Durton, New South Wales, known as Dirt Town to all it’s residents. The illusion of small-town safety for children quickly dissolves as parents react to the news.
Esther’s friends Ronnie and Lewis cannot believe their friend is gone but have their own secrets they are keeping from their parents and their friends so cannot share what they know. I loved 11 year old Ronnie and her determination to find Esther no matter what because that is what best friends do.
Small town secrets are slowly revealed as the days pass and still Esther is not found. The investigation casts suspicion on friends and family alike and deep cracks open in marriages, friendships, and families as the township turns on its own. The outsider Detective Sarah Michaels has her own secrets as she explores all the complexity of small town relationships, revealing the fragility of small town life in the process. The different perspectives also serve to push the plot forward and build a heart wrenching picture of the main characters and how small towns are simultaneously fragile and resilient.
This is seriously good and what fascinated me throughout was how Scrivenor effortlessly exposes our humanness in both negative and positive ways, whether through an 11 year old’s eyes or through a jaded Detective’s eyes. One of the must Australian reads for 2022!
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