This week for Murder/Mystery Monday, I’m back with a book from my bookshelf that I have read: Hermit by S.R. White. I picked this one up despite the endorsement by Chris Hammer. Why must books have other authors commenting on books? When, like in this case, it’s an author I did not like, it can make me hesitate about trying a new (to me) author. In this case, I’m glad I overcame that hesitancy and picked it up.

The book opens with detective Dana Russo contemplating suicide. It is her Day. The one day a year that she allows her past and her mental state to come to the fore and each year she isn’t sure if she will still be alive by the end of it. By allowing herself this Day, then through all of the rest of the year she manages to keep everything bottled away and stay functioning. However this year, in the early hours of the morning, she is called in to work. A local shop owner has been killed and a suspect found near the body has been taking into custody.

The suspect won’t talk, and is retreating into himself. Dana must try to function, while dealing with all those things that she had already opened the door to that morning. Who is this man, did he actually kill the shop owner, and if so, why? She must get him to speak, while also following up on other possible leads in case he is not the actual killer. As he starts to open up, there seem to be anomalies that have the police questioning his story. Despite fairly early confirmation that he is someone who disappeared fifteen years prior without a trace. And then there are aspects of the crime scene that seem to point to a planned and organised attack – which adds to the question of whether the suspect is guilty. Or is he lying?

This book unravels the truth, which is shocking and incredibly sad, while giving us some insights into Dana’s past and why her Day is a thing. The first mystery was engaging. The second was only partially fulfilled and I expect there to be more books centred around Dana in which we learn more. I’m definitely interested enough to read the next book when it comes out.

After a puzzling death in the wild bushlands of Australia, detective Dana Russo has just hours to interrogate the prime suspect – a silent, inscrutable man found at the scene of the crime, who disappeared without a trace 15 years earlier.

But where has he been? Why won’t he talk? And exactly how dangerous is he? Without conclusive evidence to prove his guilt, Dana faces a desperate race against time to persuade him to speak. But as each interview spirals with fevered intensity, Dana must reckon with her own traumatic past to reveal the shocking truth.

Book blurb