Consolation ( Paul Hirsch mysteries 3) - Garry Disher

SMALL CRIMES CAN HAVE TERRIBLE CONSEQUENCES.

Winter in Tiverton, and Constable Paul Hirschhausen has a snowdropper on his patch. Someone is stealing women's underwear, and Hirsch knows how that kind of crime can escalate. Then two calls come in: a child abandoned in a caravan, filthy and starving.

And a man on the rampage at the primary school. Hirsch knows how things like that can escalate, too. An absent father who isn't where he's supposed to be; another who flees to the back country armed with a rifle.

Families under pressure can break. But it's always a surprise when the killing starts. A hugely atmospheric police procedural set in the dust of the Australian outback.