S. R. White

Hermit is a gripping crime fiction debut from ex UK police officer, now Queensland resident, S.R. White.

In the early hours of the morning, Detective Dana Russo is called to the scene of a murder. A suspect is already in custody, having been found standing over the body, but other than offering his name and declining the services of a lawyer, the man, Nathan Whittler, is reluctant to talk. While her team does their due diligence investigating alternate possibilities, Dana has twelve hours to show more get a statement from Nathan that she hopes will close the case.

Set in rural Australia, most of the action in Hermit takes place within a police interrogation room as Dana carefully coaxes information from a reticent Nathan. It results in a series of tense and unusual exchanges between the two as a tentative rapport develops, despite their nominally adversarial relationship.

Nathan is nothing like Dana expects as he confesses he has not spoken to another person in fifteen years. He has, the police learn, lived alone and off the grid in the surrounding bushland since walking away from his family and job in 1994. Sensitive to the possibility of past trauma, and Nathan’s obvious emotional fragility, Dana must tread lightly as she probes for information that will explain his disappearance, and what role he may have in the murder.

The give and take of the interview is finely crafted by White, and we learn as much about Dana as we do Nathan. When the novel opens, Dana is contemplating suicide, privately reminiscing on the anniversary of a past trauma, and as the interrogation progresses some of the details of that experience are revealed. At times Dana struggles to maintain professional distance, grappling with the reminders of her own tragic childhood, torn between her empathy for Nathan, and her role as his interrogator.

Dana’s colleagues provide some relief from the intensity of the scenes between her and Nathan. I enjoyed the banter with her unit, particularly Administration assistant Lucy and fellow detective Mike, who both obviously like and respect Dana, as does her boss, Bill. As Dana moves in and out of the interview room, they are kept busy investigating both Nathan’s past, as well as the life of the dead man - running down the possibility of his wife’s involvement in the murder, and a suspected connection to organised crime.

With its riveting narrative, and intriguing characters, I found Hermit to be an engrossing read. There are a few minor threads of the story that White leaves unresolved, which is mildly irritating, though I assume, and hope, the author has plans for a sequel. show less

By the end of the first, immediately engaging, tension-filled, disturbing first chapter, the reader has discovered that every year Detective Dana Russo takes a day’s leave to mark the anniversary of what she thinks of as ‘the Day’. It’s the only day of the year when she allows herself to reflect on something profoundly traumatic which she experienced many years earlier, memories which, for the rest of the year attempts to keep locked away. It immediately becomes clear that whatever show more happened has shaped her personality; her memories continue to haunt her and, at times, threaten to overwhelm her. Even though they don’t know exactly why, everyone she works with knows that this day is sacrosanct for her. However, just before dawn she is standing, as she did every year, alongside Pulpit Falls, wondering whether it’s worth struggling on with her life … then her phone rings. It’s her boss, Bill Meeks, and he’s asking her to attend a grocery store where the owner had been stabbed to death by a burglar. Her colleague Mike should have been on call but has had to take his young son to hospital so, reluctant though she is, Dana has no option but to respond.
When she arrives at the store, she learns that the murdered man had stayed there overnight, determined to try to catch the person who’d been periodically stealing stock. When the police had responded to the silent alarm which had been triggered, they’d arrived at the scene and discovered a man bent over the body, his hands covered in blood, although there was no sign of any weapon. Apart from giving his name, Nathan Whittler, and saying “sorry” several times, he hadn’t said another word. There’s no firm evidence that he’s the murderer but he’s the only suspect so was arrested at the scene and is now at the police station. He’s refused a lawyer but has been declared fit to be questioned, although the doctor has described him as … “incredibly fragile … a frightened deer”.
Bill Meeks wants Dana to be the lead detective as, fearful that without evidence or a confession, it will be difficult to prove murder, he wants someone who can empathise and believes she’ll have the skills to “prise him open gently”. However, they have just twenty-four hours before the court will force legal representation on him so, allowing for breaks and the required eight hours sleep for the prisoner, she’ll have around five hours of actual face to face contact with him.
Central to this powerfully intense, at times claustrophobic story is the developing relationship between two emotionally damaged people as Dana attempts to get Nathan to trust her and tell her what happened. She gradually discovers that since he disappeared fifteen years earlier, he has lived totally alone, although he won’t say where, and has never spoken to another human being. It’s clear that he’s comfortable with silence but, as someone who understands, and identifies with, how threatening it feels to have someone invade your personal space, she uses her empathetic understanding to make an emotional connection with him and encourage him to open up and gradually, very gradually, Nathan starts to trust her. The fact that he refuses to talk to anyone else puts a huge burden on her, particularly as in order to retain his trust and get him to provide more details about his life and how he came to be at the scene of the crime, she needs to be prepared to expose her own vulnerability.
The increasingly intense interactions between these two characters were, at times, so powerful and moving that I often felt engulfed by their emotional fragility. I found myself wanting to protect them, to find ways to ensure that both would survive a process which was requiring each of them to relinquish their normal defences and make themselves even more vulnerable. It gradually emerged that there were many parallels in the ways each of them had dealt with earlier traumatic experiences in their lives. However, although they shared an emotional vulnerability, as the story developed, I recognised that they also shared some inner-strengths which enabled them to carry on. An exchange early in the story, when they discuss their shared love of reading and the release which can be found from escaping into someone else’s world for a time, being just one example of how a connection was made, but there were many more as the interview sessions continued.
Although the two main characters are the most comprehensively developed in the story, I felt I got to know, and like, all the other members of the team at the police station. I loved how they worked so cooperatively to solve the case, as well as the many examples of the mutual tolerance, caring and support which epitomised their professional and their personal relationships. I also loved the lighter moments of humour, the teasing banter between them, something which provided some relief from the intensity of the darker aspects of the story. In fact, throughout the story I felt totally convinced by the psychological integrity which underpinned both the character development and the credibility of the storyline. Not one character felt superfluous: no matter how minor, each had a significant part to play in the developing story.
Although there’s an ever-present urgency in this impossible-to-put-down story, I wouldn’t describe it as fast-paced because, right from the start, I felt that I was experiencing it in the same real-time world of the characters, not only sitting with Dana and Nathan in the rather claustrophobic atmosphere of the interview room, but also feeling part of all the background investigations being carried out and in all the information-gathering which would enable the team to eventually discover the truth. This is one of the most intense, absorbing and powerful crime stories/psychological thrillers I've ever read and I urge you to find why by reading this impressive debut novel for yourself.
A final reflection – although I in no way felt dissatisfied with the ending (in fact I thought it was stunning!), it did hold out the possibility that perhaps we’ll hear more of Dana and the team. So, I do hope that the author is already working on a follow-up as I’d love to get to know them better!
With my thanks to the publisher and NB for an ARC in exchange for an honest review. show less

I didn’t realize that Red Dirt Road by Australian author S.R. White was actually the third book in the Detective Dana Russo series. But even with missing the first two books I had no problem following the story so I believe any references to the previous books were tightly woven into this one.

The mystery is a puzzling one as two citizens of a small outback town are found murdered in a bizarre way. Shot through the heart and then mounted on a frame and appearing much like angels floating on show more high. Detective Dana Russo is sent to this remote outback area to try and solve this case but she is met with silence and suspicion by the locals. Dana is working against the clock as she has only been given a week to investigate. The isolation, the lack of modern comforts and the unusual characters that inhabit the small town doesn’t put Dana off her investigation and she eventually narrows down her suspicions to one suspect.

With a complex plot that sees the main character relying on her intuition and judgment, I wasn’t always sure of what she was doing but the author cleverly ties everything up and gives us a great reveal scene exposing the murderer. I plan on going back to the first two books in this series. show less

Red Dirt Road is the third police procedural to feature Detective Dana Russo from former police officer S.R. White.

In the wake of the internal political manoeuvring in Prisoner, Dana has been sent to Unamurra, a tiny outback community with a population of 82 people and given just two days to solve the murders of two locals. Discovered a month apart, the bodies of Larry Muir and Tim Ogden were found shot in the heart and strung up on mobile art installations representing angels. Dana has show more concerns about the original investigation which yielded no witnesses, suspects or motive, and knows she needs to try something different if she is going to get results, and save her career.

It seems to me that the author has drawn some inspiration from the true crime mystery centred on the Australian town of Larrimah for Red Dirt Town. There are definitely some similar elements, though White tells his own story.

In what is essentially a ‘locked room’ mystery, in that the murderer must be one of Unamurra’s residents, Dana has limited resources to work with. Her usual team isn’t with her, she’s wary of the assistance offered by the town’s police officer, Abel Barillo, and the community doesn’t seem invested in finding the truth.

There’s not a lot of action in Red Dirt Road, and despite the time pressure Dana is under I felt Red Dirt Road lacked a sense of urgency, though the mystery, and the motive is intriguing.

The information Dana needs to solve the case comes slowly as she takes an oblique approach to the case. With plenty of possible suspects, White develops several red herrings, but it’s deciphering the unusual dynamics of the town that will prove crucial to Russo solving the murders.

Not my favourite of the series so far, but Red Dirt Road is still an interesting read. show less