The Way It Is Now - Garry Disher

NOTHING STAYS BURIED FOREVER... Twenty years ago, Charlie Deravin's mother went missing, believed murdered. Her body has never been found, and his father has lived under a cloud of suspicion ever since.

Now Charlie has returned to the coastal town where his mother vanished, on disciplinary leave from his job with the police, and permanent leave from his marriage. After two decades worrying away at the mystery of his mother's disappearance, he's run out of leads. Then the skeletal remains of two people are found in the excavation of a new building site...

and the past comes crashing in on Charlie. But as one mystery is solved another is posed, and as his hometown is shaken to the core by the discovery of a brutal crime hidden for years beneath its feet, Charlie must decide what matters more: peace for the living, or justice for the dead. From the multiple Ned Kelly Award-winning author of Consolation comes a stunning new standalone thriller, for readers of Jane Harper, Ian Rankin and Chris Hammer.