Dust By Michael Brissenden – Our Review – Exciting Event Father’s Day Weekend

Our Review… Most readers will know Michael Brissenden from his thirty-five-year journalism career at the ABC where, among other roles, he was a foreign correspondent, political editor for the 7.30 Report and an investigative reporter with Four Corners. But Brissenden is quickly establishing himself on the Australian crime writing scene as a writer of fast paced, nuanced thrillers that are character driven and that shine a light on forgotten communities at the edges of Australian society. In Dust Brissenden takes us to the fictional town of Lake Herrod, a once thriving fishing and holidaying village that has fallen on hard times, with the eponymous lake drying up and developers moving in for a quick kill on cheap land. When the body of an investigative journalist is found in the lakebed, the discovery brings unwanted attention to the fringe dwellers in the all-but-abandoned caravan parks and motels that line the interstate transport routes through the town. They are the forgotten people, left behind by state and federal governments and their large-scale plans for the national energy transition to renewables. Brissenden weaves a complex web of corrupt trucking companies, bikies running drugs and prostitution, and the disenfranchised who have fallen down the rabbit holes of the sovereign citizens, the cookers and conspiracy theorists. And underlying it all, is a beautifully crafted police procedural headed by Martyn Kravets and his green off-sider, Weldon. Their relationship lies at the heart of the book as they develop a grudging respect for the way each goes about their police work. This is a gritty crime thriller that examines poverty, disadvantage and extremism, without ever allowing them to dominate the narrative. Ultimately, Dust is a sharply observed crime novel with great characters and brilliant evocation of place. It is unflinching in its observations of the fringe-dwellers of Australian society and the injustices they feel they have had visited upon them – and the desperate lengths they are willing to go to preserve what little they have. Readers who enjoyed Brissenden’s 2024 novel, Smoke, will love Dust. Review by Mark Smith – author and friend @ Great Escape Books