I found this author through a post on Threads. People often say that they sell no books via social media, but it’s where I pick up most of mine. And when I saw that it was set in Northern Australia, I knew I had to read it. Because I have connections with the area. My daughter has lived and worked in the Northern Territory and Queensland since 2009; I’ve visited the place and can see it in my head.
My fascination with that part of the world started way back in the 1960s, when I was taken to see Northern Safari at our local cinema by my parents. It inspired me to want to travel, see the world and have adventures.
Before we get on to my thoughts,
Here’s the description,
The river doesn’t give back what it takes.
When Ava Moran’s mother dies, she leaves behind a warning, a satchel, and one final instruction: go north, find what was hidden, and never stay in Normanton.
Ava ignores the last part.
In Queensland’s Gulf Country, where the heat turns vicious and old stories cling to the dust, Ava arrives with a dead woman’s warning still ringing in her ears. In her satchel are pieces of a life she was never allowed to understand: a missing brother, a cassette tape, a notebook, and a trail leading straight into a town that has spent fourteen years pretending not to know.
Jordan vanished when Ava was young.
Now she is back to find out why.
But Normanton knows how to close ranks. The locals watch too closely. Old names make people shift in their seats. A man from the past is waiting. And out near the river, something huge moves through the dark, drawn by blood, memory, or something worse.
When Ava finally plays the tape Jordan left behind, the truth does not rise gently. It breaks open the night.
Because the thing her mother feared was never only the crocodile.
Where The River Keeps It is a dark Australian psychological thriller about family damage, buried violence, and one woman’s search for the truth in a town where the river has been used to hide far too much.
The book is available now.
My thoughts. No spoilers.
Don’t stay in Normanton.
They were her mother’s last words. But were they said to protect her, or was it the last attempt of a dying woman who had been manipulating people all her life to control things?
Of course, it was never going to work. Because we all want to know where we’re from, especially if there are things in our lives that we don’t know. That’s the thing with unfinished business; it gnaws at you. The author understands that and uses it to construct the tale.
I’m not going to reveal anything about the twists and turns in the narrative, except that you won’t see most of them coming.
Ava stays in Normanton. And things start getting intense, very quickly. There’s no hanging around here, the action starts and keeps going.
From the first scene in the Purple Pub in Normanton, the atmosphere is set; it’s tense with anticipation, with fear and with repressed secrets, and that’s the unspoken thread that joins every scene, every setting throughout this book.
The descriptions are perfect and bring it all to life. You can feel the heat, the rain, the mud, the noises that a tin roof makes as it cools in the evening. The sense that the dark hides danger. It’s all there. The dialogue is spare, staccato; it all helps to quicken the pace and raise the tension.
There’s a man-eating crocodile, but that’s not the main thing to fear. The actions and emotions of those with more to lose envelop everything. Along with the realisation that there’s something more to discover. What seemed like a simple thing- go and find out the truth- takes on a whole new meaning with every revelation.
The unspoken message here is that if it takes a village to raise a child, it also takes one to hide the truth and look the other way.
At the end, when the whole story comes out, we can see how each piece fitted together and that, without one person’s complicity, the rest of it would never have happened.
Ava changes throughout the story – who wouldn’t? As she finds the truth about her family, her missing brother is almost the least of what she finds. Nothing is what she expected. and nothing will ever be the same afterwards.
This is one of those books that takes you gently by the throat and gives you a good shake. It’s often said a certain book is unputdownable, but it doesn’t always apply.
In this case, it’s the perfect description.
Highly recommended.
About the Author.
Victoria Reiby writes gritty Australian rural noir and atmospheric crime thrillers set against the raw, unforgiving landscapes of Queensland. Her stories blend buried secrets, corruption, justice and redemption, following tough, flawed and deeply human characters.
She is the author of By the Horns and The Weipa Crocodile Trilogy, weaving suspenseful mysteries that showcase the beauty and brutality of the Australian bush. Perfect for fans of Jane Harper, Chris Hammer and Candice Fox, her books deliver gripping tension, emotional depth and unforgettable twists.
When she’s not writing, Victoria explores the rugged outback, gathering real-world inspiration from rural communities, cattle stations and remote landscapes that bring her work to life.
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