Twenty years after Jessica, a badly hungover ornithology student in the NSW rainforest videos a lyrebird mimicking a woman screaming in terror, a young woman’s body is found in nearby bush. Recently retired detective Megan Blaxland is coaxed back for the cold case. After all, it had originally been Megan’s case as a rookie detective constable allocated the ‘nutjobs, losers and cranks’, as the male cops quickly categorised Jessica.

Back then there’d been no body, no reports of a missing person, no evidence whatsoever (unless you believed Jessica that a lyrebird could only make such terrified sounds if it had overheard them). Megan believed but got nowhere. Now there was a body, and a chance to catch a killer who believed they’d gotten away with murder. In Lyrebird, Caro takes a fascinating hook and crafts a very engaging crime novel that has plenty of narrative drive, some fascinating characters beyond the twin leads of Jessica and Megan, and gives the reader insight into issues like the scourge of human trafficking.

There’s a good sense of the Australian bush, a place of daily life and death, and Caro has a really good touch for the complexities and kaleidoscopic range of human nature. Building to a blazing conclusion, Lyrebird is well worth a read.

Reviewed by Craig Sisterson

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