The Valley

My 6P review: Premise, Plot, People, Place, Prose/Pace, Praise

An entrepreneur is murdered. Nell is a close blood victim. Cowboy lawyers, conmen and grave robbers. And the most emotional story yet for Nell.

The sins of the father
The love of a daughter
The secrets that divide them

Told in two timelines and from different points of view, I could keep reading this now. I wanted to come home from work and immediately pick it up and read it.

The plot was well thought out and structured, intertwined in timelines and amongst a vast and varied cast. The reveals were worth it and fitted the story.

Hammer’s writing style is unique. He doesn’t rush things so if you are after a slower paced book, then these are for you. Hammer’s description of show more time and place is extraordinary. A reader can easily immerse themselves into the story. I felt as though I was in The Valley alongside Nell, Teramina, Simmons and everybody else.

Whilst there are a lot of characters, I never lost track of who was who and the role they played. I cared about the characters, and I wanted to know more about them and what happened to them all.

Hammer captures Australian history, political motives and corruption and is not afraid to use it to use as a base for his stories. His scenery and imagery are breathtaking. Such a great Australian author.

This was an excellent read. I loved it. My family even said I sounded like Victoria Azarenka as I was audibly exclaiming with each page turn (the tennis happened to be on in the background).

I honestly can’t wait for Nell and Ivan’s next adventure.

5⭐️ show less

Hammer at his absolute best. Intriguing and totally engrossing. Brilliant dialogue, perfect imagery of the land, and the character development of the two main protagonists continues from the previous novels. I couldn't look away - and finished in a weekend.
I couldn’t help thinking of Dickens when all was revealed at the end of this hyper-twisty thriller, the epic scale of the plot spread over three generations. I also really like the long arc that connects all the way back to his first novel ‘Scrublands’, something that rewards the loyalty of his long-term readers.

Chris Hammer is one of the rare authors that is an automatic read for me. I just love his writing style and really enjoy the detective pairing that leads his current crime mystery series — Nell Buchanan and Ivan Lucic. While not topping the firecracker novel that kicked off this series (Treasure & Dirt #1), The Tilt/DeadMan’s Creek (#2) and The Seven (#3) were strong reads featuring compelling crime mysteries also.

The Valley features Hammer’s trademark evocative setting, another small-town microcosm steeped in history, secrets and generational trauma. Once again, Hammer skilfully depicts an authentic tension, wariness and mistrust of outsiders under the surface of everyday interactions, and with respect to the natural environment, show more you can almost smell the eucalypts…

Alternating historical timelines and multi-character narrative perspectives is always a construct I enjoy in my leisure reading. However, I found the historical voices in The Valley particularly engaging and with greater depth and nuance than some in the prior novel, The Seven. As in previous homicide investigations in this series, in seeking to unravel the circuitous, multi-layered web of crime underpinning present-day events, our daring detective duo must tangle with threads from their own pasts too. Continue reading: https://www.bookloverbookreviews.com/2024/11/the-valley-chris-hammer-review.html show less

Thirty years ago small-town police officerSimmons was seconded to The Valley, an enclave dominated by logging and the efforts to revive an old gold mine. After a catastrophic flood and several deaths, Simmons feels protective to the innocent young woman who has inherited, but others want to encroach on her. Thirty years later police officer Nell is called to The Valley as a man is found dead. Can these events be connected?
I really like Hammer's novels and this is probably the best yet. The story goes across two different periods in time, the plots running parallel to each other and this device works really well in a complex plot where identities and motives seem to change. It a very satisfying read, the characters are well-developed and show more the narrative is tight. show less

A very dense novel with a complex plot rooted in a least two time periods. The author has the reader working overtime to reconcile facts and theories, to keep track of a huge range of characters and events, and to remember all the salient bits and pieces. You certainly get your money's worth. For me there were still questions at the end where I only thought I had the answers.

Quite a lot more than a murder mystery.

In the present day Nell and Ivan investigate the murder of local businessman Wolfgang in a village called The Valley. There are two additional timelines: a bank heist gone wrong in 1988 and the history of an attempt at reviving the Gryphon goldmine in The Valley in the 1990s. This was enjoyable, but the different timelines meant there was a fair amount of repetition. There was also a LOT of nature description. It also felt as if the narrative was weighted towards the 1990s story and I kept forgetting about the murder of poor Wolfgang - to be honest Ivan and Nell didn't seem that focussed on it either.

There is the usual beautiful map at the beginning of my edition, but I would have benefited from a map of the mine and the tracks leading show more to it and the cisterns and the pools and the tailing ponds and the ventilation shaft - at times I was completely lost. The solution to the mystery was crammed into the final few chapters and felt a little rushed. Nell and Ivan seemed to have got to the bottom of things but were lacking actual evidence and precise details in some areas. Not my favourite in this series. show less