Twisted Secrets. Hidden Victims. Monstrous Crimes.

In the rural Tasmanian town of Dunton, the body of a former headmistress of a children’s home is discovered, revealing a tortured life and death.

Detective Jake Hunter, newly arrived, searches for her killer among past residents of the home. He unearths pain, secrets and broken adults. Pushing aside memories of his own treacherous past, Jake focuses all his energy on the investigation. Why are some of the children untraceable? What caused such damage among the survivors?

The identity of her murderer seems hidden from Jake by Dunton’s fog of prejudice and lies, until he is forced to confront not only the town’s history but his own nature…

Dr L.J.M. Owen has degrees in archaeology, forensic science and librarianship. She speaks five languages and has travelled extensively through Europe and Asia. L.J. was inspired to write the Dr Pimms series by the neglected women's stories she discovered between the cracks of popular archaeology. Three books in this series have been published by Echo Publishing. L.J.'s new novel, The Great Divide, introduces a new story world and characters. L.J. is also the Festival Director of the Terror Australis Readers and Writers Festival, a celebration of literature and literacy in southern Tasmania, and divides her time between Canberra and southern Tasmania.

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In her fourth novel, L J M Owen, author of the ‘Dr Pimms, Intermillenial Sleuth’ series, gives us Australian rural crime at its most atmospheric: mist-shrouded streets, ruined vineyards, an abandoned home for ‘bad girls’ and a list of vanished, untraceable children. Detective Jack Hunter is a fish out of water. A big city blow-in from the mainland, he has been transplanted to the small Tasmanian town of Dunton and finds himself on the wrong side the Great Divide—and the locals. Hamstrung by small-town politics, a distinct lack of resources, and thinly veiled prejudices and favouritism, he has his work cut out for him when first a young boy goes missing and then a body is found. Digging deeper into the past opens old wounds and before too long the victims start piling up. Moody and dark, gritty and gripping, The Great Divide is compulsive reading. Owen builds a rich yet bleak and ultimately devastating history for the people of Dunton. It’s a small town full of secrets and bodies—buried and not buried alike—and no-one can be ruled out as a suspect. This book is for fans of Candice Fox, Dervla McTiernan, Christian White and Alan Carter.

Four stars

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