I picked this up to read a couple of chapters in the bath. Then I found myself halfway through and the bath water was cold. I think that means that I’m finding it a pretty captivating story so far.

India Kane’s car breaks down in the outback when she’s on her way to meet her best friend. She gets a ride into a small outback town and is almost immediately arrested for the murders of both her best friend and the man who picked her up on the road.

Carver seems like a good writer so far; both the settings and the characters seem real though I’m finding the names confusing — she has at least a Jeremy, a Jerome and a Jed (who might be one of the first two) and she also switches from using first names to using surnames when you haven’t quite got the hang of them. The plot has echoes of Sara Paretsky as everything seems to tie back to corruption within the local big industry. On a first half showing this is good stuff.

Two of the criticisms I have heard about this book are that there are too many coincidences and that there are some plot believability problems. Now I’ve finished the book I can see where the plot believability concerns come from. Part of the ending of the book is a stretch of scientific credulity. I wasn’t too bothered by it, this is fiction after all, though I’d have liked a little more feasible scientific explanation to back up the story. On the coincidence count, I may have missed something but most of the possible coincidences I saw were well explained by the story.

I found the plot a bit outsize for the book (which may just be my way of dealing with the believability problems) but on the whole I found it solid and I enjoyed the book. I don’t know if Carver plans to write more books about India or if she plans to leave this as a standalone book but I plan to watch out for whatever she writes next.