I haven’t yet read this week’s instalment of Murder/Mystery Monday. Again. There are just too many good books to read and not enough time to read them all. But I’ll get to them all. Eventually.

The Salt Madonna is the debut novel of Australian author Catherine Noske.

This is a story of a crime. This is a story of a miracle. There are two stories here.

Hannah Mulvey left her island home as a teenager. But her stubborn, defiant mother is dying, and now Hannah has returned to Chesil, taking up a teaching post at the tiny schoolhouse, doing what she can in the long days of this final year.

But though Hannah cannot pinpoint exactly when it begins, something threatens her small community. A girl disappears entirely from class. Odd reports and rumours reach her through her young charges. People mutter on street corners, the church bell tolls through the night and the island’s women gather at strange hours… And then the miracles begin.

A page-turning, thought-provoking portrayal of a remote community caught up in a collective moment of madness, of good intentions turned terribly awry. A blistering examination of truth and power, and how we might tell one from the other.

Ok, now I’ve written that blurb and remembered why I bought it, I’m thinking it needs to be bumped up my priority list.