Needing time out from her troubled marriage and a managerial job with Family Services in Sydney, Dana Gibson heads north to Queensland to take up a temporary position as a social worker.

Her first assigned case is a young family living in Crows Nest, north of Toowoomba, with an ongoing history of intergenerational domestic issues spanning 40 years. The mother, Sandra, is flat out caring for her own children as well as a teenage daughter of a relative. Sandra and her best friend, Debbie, a constant companion, are the subject of much gossip about town.

Upon making her initial assessment, Dana thinks things on the surface seem pretty straightforward. A day later, there is news that Sandra and Debbie have been found dead in their car at a remote location.

The police investigation from the start seems far from thorough and the case is treated as a murder suicide. Dana is not convinced. She begins her own investigation, managing in the process to put people offside, including the police and fellow colleagues. But she does get some help from a most unlikely source.

Crows Nest is about the dramas of everyday life and the professionals who are on the frontline. Nikki Mottram, having been a social worker herself, brings an interesting perspective to Dana’s work and her determination to put her own safety aside to protect a vulnerable family.

This is a strong debut, a quick read, but with plenty of substance, interesting supporting characters and with excellent pacing. It has a satisfying resolution, with just a little held over to tempt me into the next instalment, Killarney, out in 2024.

Reviewed by Teresa Lewis

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Nikki Mottram uses her background in child protection in her crime fiction. She has a psychology degree from The University of Queensland and has worked in London and Australia in positions protecting and promoting the welfare of children at risk of harm. She has been published in the Boroondara Literary Awards anthology and shortlisted for the Fish Short Story Prize and the Hal Porter Short Story Competition. In 2018, she was the recipient of a Katharine Susannah Pritchard Writers’ Centre Fellowship. She grew up and resides in Toowoomba, and brings to her work an understanding of rural communities, their customs and their secrets.