Dirt Town

Dirt Town (published in the US as Dirt Creek) is an impressive crime fiction debut from Hayley Scrivenor.

When twelve-year-old Esther Bianchi fails to return home from school one afternoon, the small country town of Durton is horrified. The reader knows from the outset that Esther is dead, though it’s five long days before the town learns her tragic fate.

Dirt Town unfolds from multiple perspectives, most notably the poignant voices of Esther’s best friends, Ronnie and Lewis; the missing girl’s devastated mother, Constance; investigative officer Detective Sergeant Sarah Michaels; and a dramatic ‘Greek chorus’ that represents the children of the community.

This is an absorbing, tense mystery where Esther’s disappearance prompts show more the revelation of several secrets. It’s not just the girl’s killer who is desperate to hide wrong-doing from Michael’s investigation, and untangling the mistakes, deceits, scandals, and crimes that cloud the case is a challenge for an outsider. With so many viable suspects, I did not guess the answer as to who, or why, until it was revealed.

Sensitive readers may find particular scenes disturbing, but I did not feel they were gratuitous, and spoke to character.

The insular nature of the community, it’s remote location and hot, energy-sapping weather create an atmospheric read. The characters anxiety supports the momentum of the narrative, which is measured, but not slow.

Skilfully crafted, Dirt Town is a gritty, intense, and moving novel that exposes a tragedy and its aftermath. show less

Wow. This was an incredible first audiobook experience for me. At 10 and a half hours, I wasn't sure how I would like devoting that much time to this book, but I ended up bingeing it over the course of 3 days. I didn't want to stop listening!

The audiobook I found to be incredibly immersive. The narrator did a fantastic job really diving into each character. The author did a wonderful job creating such an atmospheric story. The sweltering heat of rural Australia in summertime I think has as much a role as any other character.

The story itself is not a happy one. There was no happy ending here, for most of the characters, however it is a satisfying ending.

Young Esther Bianchi goes missing on her way home from school in her small, rural show more Australia town. The story is about the search to find Esther, but also uncovering secrets in this small dusty town. The story unravels slowly, being told from different perspectives in each chapter: Esther's two best friends, Esther's mother, Esther's mother's best friend, the detective sergeant in charge of the search and investigation into Esther's disappearance. There's also the "Greek chorus" that has chapters sporadically throughout the book. I found this Greek chorus to be an interesting touch. It gave more perspective to the lives of the children in Durton. Not just one child's life, as we see with Ronnie and Lewis, but the town's children's overall experience, things both widely known and spoken of as well as the more unspoken truths, growing up in this small town.

Overall, I think the audiobook deserves a 5 stars. The narrator was really fantastic. It helped further cement the mood to have the Australian accent speaking throughout.
The book itself is 4.5 stars. I just had one issue with it, but it pulled me out of the story every time the character of Ronnie has a scene or is speaking. Ronnie, for whatever reason, doesn't seem like a 12 year old. She's incredibly impulsive and juvenile, she doesn't respond in an appropriate way to learning her best friend has gone missing. It's a bizarre choice, and pulled me out of the story, because I kept checking to see whether Ronnie and Esther were supposed to be 12 or 7 or 8 years old.

Many thanks to NetGalley and Macmillan Audio for providing me with the audiobook in exchange for an honest review. It's a fantastic story and one that I will wholeheartedly recommend to others in the future, maybe not my students though. show less

Dirt Creek begins on December 4, 2001 as several children in the town of Durton (nicknamed Dirt Town by local inhabitants) witness the discovery of a dead body by an unidentified man. It then backtracks to November 30, 2001 when twelve-year-old Esther (Estie) Bianchi decides to take a detour rather than go directly home after school. She never makes it home, thus begins the police investigation into Estie’s disappearance, led by Detective Sargeant Sarah Michaels.

Her best friend Veronica (Ronnie) is sure that Estie is alive and there are clues somewhere revealing her whereabouts so she sets about trying to unlock the mystery. Their friend, Lewis, thinks he saw Estie with a stranger that day but is afraid to tell the police.

In a small show more town, everyone knows everyone else and knows their business. They all have something to hide and Scrivenor slowly but surely reveals these secrets, which make them all suspects in Estie’s disappearance.

Chapters alternate by person with Ronnie in first person and Constance, who is Estie’s mother, Lewis and Sarah in third person. Constance must cope with the disappearance of her daughter and the potential that her husband, Steven, was involved. Lewis must deal with an abusive father, a submissive mother and deep, dark secret, as he mulls over what he thought he saw on the day Estie disappeared. Even Sarah is going through trauma of a bad breakup. And then there is the cumulative We, the chorus of children of the town who, even at a young age, see what they see, rationalize what goes on, and realize the futility of trying to escape a dying town. The cast of characters beyond those mentioned above all have a hand in laying out the plot, all have secrets and are all suspects. Few go unscathed.

Scrivenor deftly describes the dying town, the heat, the paths each inhabitant follows and their impact on the investigation. Dirt Creek is equal part police procedural and sociological study of small-town life.

The bok received several starred reviews. One review said it was populated with a “…highly complex cast of characters, many of them difficult to like.” Another said it “…is less a tale of murder most horrid than a study in quiet, everyday violence…It’s a novel of sharp-edged tempers, accidents waiting to happen and dark inheritances.”

Dirt Creek is a slow burn of a novel that grabs you and keeps you until the totally satisfying ending (which came as a total surprise to me). It’s recommended for readers who like police procedurals and insular small towns. Australian authors Jane Harper’s Dry and Shelly Burr’s debut, Wake (which I’m going to read next) are potential reads. Included in the ‘missing child’ category are Lisa Gardner’s Frankie Elkin series Before She Disappeared and One Step too Far, and finally Paula McLain’s When the Stars Go Dark. show less

Dirt Creek by Hayley Scrivenor is a recommended debut mystery and procedural set in Australia.

In the opening we know her body has been found, as witnessed by the children who knew her. Following this is the investigation that begins when twelve-year-old Esther disappears on the way home from school. Detective Sergeant Sarah Michaels arrives in town to investigate Esther's disappearance and the whole community is thrown into the investigation. Esther's best friend, Ronnie, is determined to find Esther and bring her home.

Chapters are told through different points-of-view, including chapters titled "we" which represents a sort of Greek chorus composed of the children of the community watching and observing the death and investigation of show more Esther. It becomes clear as the investigation unfolds that everyone isn't telling the truth and that people have secrets they want to keep hidden, no matter the costs to the whole town. The children are honest with their insights, but also with their reasons to keep silent.

The action and tension in Dirt Creek builds very slowly and gradually as suspects are set apart and more information is gradually revealed by the children and the community. Media attention and the police investigation make those who could reveal more information even more reticent to do so. The personal lives of the families and their children is part of the narrative, and is also heartbreaking at times. Ronnie's chapters are the most moving because Esther was her best friend and it is clear that she misses her friend.

This is a character driven mystery. The children are sympathetic characters although also repetitious, while the adults are less sympathetic and more disagreeable. Several of the adult friendships are an important part of the narrative, but their friendships are also brought into question. The town itself is a desolate and destructive force among the residents.

The quality of the writing is quite good, but the actual slow progress of the plot inhibits the insights from making a big impact in the overall presentation of the narrative. It should be noted that there is a lot of violence in the plot that is off-putting and not necessary. The plot needs tightening up and a clarification of the direction the narrative is taking. Additionally, it is never necessary to add everything you have big feelings about to one novel.
Disclosure: My review copy was courtesy of Macmillan via NetGalley.
http://www.shetreadssoftly.com/2022/07/dirt-creek.html show less

A great mystery set in a small town where every neighbor is a suspect! A young girl is missing in a small town and suddnely, everyone's secrets are coming out.

I love reading books set in Australia because I only know the country through stories. I love that the land and the heat are characters themselves in the story as much as everyone else. In this seemingly idyllic small town to raise families, I liked that we also had the POV of the kids as well as adults and detectives. The kids' side to the story was always a bit more confused but also, they knew more about the missing girl and some about the adults. The twists were well plotted and kept me chasing all the red herrings. I was surprised by the final reveal. What a great story. It show more sucked me in completely and held me until the end. I loved this one.

A huge thank you to the author and publisher for providing an e-ARC via Netgalley. This does not affect my opinion regarding the book. show less

This was a rough one. It was going okay, set to be a 2.5 star, until the last 60 or so pages, then it completely jumped off the cliff.

Dirt Creek was incredibly slow and meandered everywhere. Not just in the red herring, "who's the killer?" way, but just slow in general. It couldn't decide which character to follow either. Initially, I thought we were following Ronnie, and that the book would be about the child coming to realize her best friend had been killed and trying to find out who the killer was since the adults in her life didn't seem to care all that much. Then, I thought it was about the sergeant who came to investigate the girl's disappearance. Yet it kept alternating between the two and occasionally throwing in other show more perspectives.

In the end, I found myself not caring about any of the characters and even blatantly disliking the sergeant. If you're looking for an LGBTQ+ murder mystery, there's so many better ones to pick from than this. show less

This was beautifully written and well-plotted. The chapters from the perspective of Sarah the missing persons sergeant were my favourite, and I hope she appears in another book. I'm not sure the 'We' perspective chapters really added much, but they were fairly short in any case.