Taken by Dinuka McKenzie

A baby goes missing. The mother is depressed. The husband is away. The grandmother is aloof and defensive. There is a previous bad relationship, domestic violence and abuse. First response from the police is that it is a custody battle gone wrong. It’s the first case assigned to Detective Sergeant Kate Miles, just back from maternity leave and struggling with the aftereffects of a traumatic incident that has left her with a shoulder injury. The more she investigates, the more she is convinced that the story is not as simple as it might appear.

Kate is under a lot of pressure. She wants to prove that she is up to the job, despite the obvious lack of confidence from her superior, competition from colleagues, the ongoing demands from her husband and young family, and on top of that, it seems that her father is going to be implicated in a political scandal. She is aware of the news media all to ready to pounce. It is this pressure that builds a lot of the tension, and then on top of everything, there are the vicious threats from the criminal Veliu.

Into the mix, McKenzie adds occasional chapters from another anonymous voice or voices, the inner thoughts of someone drawn to the baby in her bassinet. We don't know who it is - the thoughts of one of the characters we have met, or someone else. These pages add to the intrigue, the sense that there is another perspective to the mystery.

In Kate Miles, McKenzie has created a detective hero that many can empathise with – with her moments of stress, uncertainty and vulnerability. But Kate has learnt to trust her instincts, to take things slowly and calmly, and to work things out carefully. That is what wins her case in the end, the ability to empathise, reason and persist. This is the second book in the Detective Kate Miles crime fiction series by debut author Dinuka McKenzie, and it has the potential to be one of many more to come, a series that will be enjoyed by many followers of Australian rural crime drama.

Themes: Detective fiction, Child abduction, Domestic violence, Mystery, Outback.

Helen Eddy