'Hirsch’s rural beat is wide. Daybreak to day’s end, dirt roads and dust. Every problem that besets small towns and isolated properties, from unlicensed driving to arson. In the time of the virus, Hirsch is seeing stresses heightened and social divisions cracking wide open. His own tolerance under strain; people getting close to the edge.

'Today he’s driving an international visitor around: Janne Van Sant, whose backpacker son went missing while the borders were closed. They’re checking out his last photo site, his last employer. A feeling that the stories don’t quite add up.

'Then a call comes in: a roadside fire. Nothing much—a suitcase soaked in diesel and set alight—but two noteworthy facts emerge. Janne knows more than Hirsch about forensic evidence. And the body in the suitcase is not her son’s.' (Publication summary)

'A stunning new standalone crime novel from one of Australia's most revered writers

'Set in a beach-shack town an hour from Melbourne, The Way It Is Now tells the story of a burnt-out cop named Charlie Deravin.

'Charlie is living in his family's holiday house, on forced leave since he made a mess of things at work.

'Things have never been easy for Charlie. Twenty years earlier his mother went missing in the area, believed murdered. His father has always been the main suspect, though her body was never found.

'Until now- the foundations are being dug for a new house on a vacant block. The skeletal remains of a child and an adult are found-and Charlie's past comes crashing in on him.

'The Way It Is Now is the enthralling new novel by Garry Disher, one of Australia's most loved and celebrated crime writers.'(Publication summary)

'Winter in Tiverton.

'Constable Paul Hirschhausen has a snowdropper on his patch. Someone is stealing women’s underwear, and Hirsch knows enough about that kind of crime—how it can escalate—not to take it lightly.

'But the more immediate concern is a high school teacher worried about one of the students.

'A little girl in danger. A family on the edge. An absent father who isn’t where he’s supposed to be.

'The cold, seeping feeling something is very, very wrong.' (Publication summary)