Margaret Hickey is a rising and consistent talent in the Australian bush noir genre, and her latest offering is a ripper – a clever and engaging police procedural that looks at murder in a small country town, grappling with an extremely topical issue.

Geordie Pritchard, local son of a wealthy family and ardent environmentalist, has built a massive wind farm on the outskirts of the small Victorian town where generations of his family have lived. Some locals are for it; it brings income to farmers after all; others are completely against it for ruining the landscape, impacting arable land, and other more far-fetched reasons.

One morning, a body is discovered hanging from one of the turbine’s huge white blades – it is Geordie. Detective Sergeants Belinda Burney and Will Lovell are a married couple (Belinda is heavily pregnant). They know Geordie and are shocked by what appears to be a dramatic suicide. But Geordie’s widow, Lucinda, insists her husband was murdered – and she has the death threats to prove it.

As they investigate Geordie’s business and personal dealings within the town, including his substantial philanthropy, they find that things are not what they seem. When another death occurs, the investigations step up a notch. And on top of this, there has been a series of petty thefts of food and small items at the local school. The question is how are they related.

This is a very clever murder mystery, brimming with interesting characters, but the wind turbines steal the show. Addressing the impact they have had on the town, their value to a community and to Australia, while we work to address climate change, they are a constant presence. This is a fabulous novel.

Reviewed by Lesley West

Read an interview with Margaret Hickey about An Ill Wind.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Margaret Hickey is an award-winning author and playwright from North East Victoria.

She has a PhD in Creative Writing and is deeply interested in rural lives and communities.

She is the author of Cutters End, Stone Town and Broken Bay.