The Valley by Chris Hammer, Review: Evocative and intense
The Valley (aka The Broken River) is the fourth novel in Chris Hammer’s bestselling crime mystery series starring homicide Detectives Nell Buchanan & Ivan Lucic. Read my review.
Publication: Allen and Unwin, October 2024
Genre: Crime-Detective, Historical, Mystery, Thriller, Action
The Valley Publisher Synopsis
Buchanan & Lucic, Book 4
Nell Buchanan and Ivan Lucic are back – and Nell is thrown into her most emotionally fraught investigation yet.
A controversial entrepreneur is murdered in a remote mountain valley, but this is no ordinary case. Ivan and Nell are soon contending with cowboy lawyers, conmen, bullion thieves and grave robbers.
But it’s when Nell discovers the victim is a close blood relative that the past begins to take on a looming significance.
What did take place in The Valley all those years ago? What was Nell’s mother doing there, and what was her connection to troubled young police officer Simmons Burnside? And why do the police hierarchy insist Ivan and Nell stay with the case despite an obvious conflict of interest?
~ Published as The Broken River in the UK
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My Review
Chris Hammer is one of the rare authors that is an automatic read for me. I just love his writing style and really enjoy the detective pairing that leads his current crime mystery series — Nell Buchanan and Ivan Lucic. While not topping the firecracker novel that kicked off this series (Treasure & Dirt #1), The Tilt/DeadMan’s Creek (#2) and The Seven (#3) were strong reads featuring compelling crime mysteries also.
The Valley features Hammer’s trademark evocative setting, another small-town microcosm steeped in history, secrets and generational trauma. Once again, Hammer skilfully depicts an authentic tension, wariness and mistrust of outsiders under the surface of everyday interactions, and with respect to the natural environment, you can almost smell the eucalypts…
Alternating historical timelines and multi-character narrative perspectives is always a construct I enjoy in my leisure reading. However, I found the historical voices in The Valley particularly engaging and with greater depth and nuance than some in the prior novel, The Seven. As in previous homicide investigations in this series, in seeking to unravel the circuitous, multi-layered web of crime underpinning present-day events, our daring detective duo must tangle with threads from their own pasts too.
The Valley is another satisfying crime pageturner with substance from Chris Hammer that I highly recommend. That said, if you have not yet read Book 1, Treasure & Dirt, do start there!
My Rating
Story 4.5 / 5 ; The Writing 4.5 / 5
Get your copy of The Valley / The Broken River
Amazon Angus & Robertson AU Audio
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Click on book covers for full reviews of each novel.
* My receiving a pre-publication digital copy of The Valley from the publisher for review purposes did not impact the expression of my honest opinions above.