Broke Road (Rose Riley)

In Australia’s bucolic wine country, a homicide detective is on the hunt for a killer with a ruthless agenda in a gripping novel of suspense by the author of Black River.

A young woman is found dead in her isolated town house in rural Red Creek, an up-and-coming wine tourism destination outside Sydney. No forced entry. No signs of struggle. And her geologist husband has an alibi, though it’s not exactly solid. While a tabloid journalist is quick to spin her own damning narrative, homicide detective Rose Riley is questioning everything she sees―especially in a rapidly developing community that already seems on edge.

While Riley and her partner, Priya Patel, work the case with a local detective, crime reporter Adam Bowman follows his own leads. Then forensic evidence matches that of a pair of unsolved murders elsewhere in Australia: two other married women, murdered months apart yet in the exact same manner. Riley realizes she’s dealing with a serial killer. But one whose victims weren’t random. These women were chosen, watched, and targeted for a purpose.

As the secrets in this small town emerge, the suspects mount. Now Riley must unearth the deadliest secret of all―the true motive behind the murders―before another woman dies.

Matthew Spencer was a journalist at The Australian for twenty years, with long stints running the Foreign News desk and as opinion editor. He has written for newspapers and magazines in Uganda and Kenya and been published in The Australian Financial Review and The Sydney Morning Herald. He has an honors degree in English literature from the University of Sydney. Black River, his debut and the first novel in the Rose Riley series, won the 2023 Inaugural Danger Award for Debut Crime Fiction. Spencer lives in Sydney with his wife and their three children.