We chat with Hero (DS Walker 5) author, Patricia Wolf.

Echo: Patricia, congratulations on the release of Hero! For readers new to the series, what can they expect from DS Lucas Walker's latest case?

PW: In Hero, Walker is back in outback Queensland, working in the small town of Katima, when the body of a young man is found hanging from a tree in the park. Although it looks like suicide, Walker’s instincts tell him something is off. He discovers a connection with an unsolved death from five years earlier and then another brutal killing changes everything. The victim: Caden Conroy, a national cricketing hero. Walker has to unpick the deceit and corruption at the heart of all three cases to discover if they are connected, and how.

Echo: This is the fifth book in the DS Walker series. How has Lucas changed since we first met him in Outback?

PW: In Outback, Walker was a bit of a loner who lived for the job. He’d just come from an undercover role, he preferred working alone, he was a bit rootless and kept everyone, except his beloved grandmother, at arm’s length. In Hero, five years later, he’s much more open and is looking for a place to call home. He’s closer to his family than ever and is working with a young constable called Vinh Nguyen, whom he trusts and respects. He’s still obsessed with work but he’s starting to realise it might not be the only important thing in life.

Echo: Hero centres on the murder of a famous cricketer. What interested you about bringing the world of elite sport into a DS Walker novel?

PW: Two things about elite sport intrigue me. The first is the striking absence of any openly gay players: I’m curious about why being closeted is still a fact of life across sporting codes, when in the rest of the modern world, sexuality is largely no longer an issue. The second, is the huge rise in sports gambling. When I started researching the way that sports and gambling are increasingly intertwined, it opened an entire new world of potential corruption and criminality for Walker to investigate.

Echo: The Australian outback feels like a character in its own right in your novels. What keeps drawing you back to that setting?

PW: Outback Queensland talks to me in a way that other locations haven’t, at least so far. I grew up in Mount Isa, in Queensland’s far northwest, so the outback feels like home, and I love spending time there, even if it’s only in my imagination. It’s a singular place and one of the world’s most isolated and ancient environments. I love the vastness of it, the wide horizons, the huge sky, the amazing and varied landscape. It’s beautiful, awe inspiring and – from a crime writing perspective – adds an extra layer of suspense and threat to the story. In the outback, we’re all at the mercy of the elements!

Echo: Finally, what do you hope readers take away from Hero?

Primarily, I hope they enjoy it as a fast-paced crime novel, with a few twists and turns to keep readers guessing. It’s not really a book about sport, but I hope it will open up some conversations around sports betting and how gambling is impacting sporting teams, players and supporters. And for fans of the series, I hope they’ll like the new directions Walker’s personal life is taking, too.