High Country Homicide

by Henry Harper

For fans of The Dry by Jane Harper, Outback by Patricia Wolf and Fiona Tarr.

A body in the lake.
A town living in fear.
And one policewoman determined to find the truth.

Senior Constable Kate Delaney is coming home. High Country born and bred, she has taken a posting in the heart of the Aussie bush. It's Ned Kelly country. Beautiful, iconic and full of secrets.

A body has turned up in the lake just outside town. It's her predecessor, a tragic figure who died under a cloud of mystery. Kate realises she has to figure out what happened, to avoid a similar fate.

And that means getting to know the locals - a richly drawn band of characters with heart, humour and dark secrets.

Join Kate in a race against time, as dark and powerful forces emerge to stop the truth from coming out. At all costs...

240 pages, Kindle Edition

Published April 29, 2025

Reviews

[jean m hannify]

An uncomplicated read

This is an introductory novel which sees Senior Constable Kate Delaney relocate to her home town in rural Australia, only to find herself thrown into solving the suspicious demise of her predecessor.
High Country Homicide is an easy read with few twists and turns and culminates in a neatly wrapped up ending, rather like an old fashioned action movie - the good guys swoop in and deal with all the bad guys and everyone goes home happy.
I didn't dislike the book, but I didn't love it either. I think it will take a dip into the next in the series to decide,whether it's good Yea or a Nay for me.

[H]

Lone lady cop returns to small town where dad the previous cop died.
New cop also died and she is replacing that one.
Others have died. Seems town has it's own rules, Mr Vineyard owner is in charge. Warned off my district cop shop.

And then...bam. It's all so convenient, Vineyards wife steps in, lone lady cop defeats bikies and everyone else, happy ending district cop shop disbanded, and all is well in the town.
Yep that quick, that unlikely and that silly.

A terrible book

[Michelle Smallwood]

It’s a great holiday read. The pace is fast, the story kept me interested although the ending is a bit far fetched.
Great to read a book that’s story based, doesn’t drone on and not in the least pretentious.
About a young female cop, Kate Delaney returning to her hometown after a relationship breakdown and cleaning up the toxic town, solving murders with a bit of romance on the side. What more could you want?

[Kate M]

I found it took a bit longer than usual for this one to grab me but it turned out to be a worthwhile, enjoyable read. A great sense of place, immersing the reader deep in the Australian high country, where some bad people have got a small town gripped in terror. Also a great lead character in Kate Delaney, a new gutsy crime fighter to root for. Intriguing questions were left unanswered at the end of book one, so I'm straight into book two.

[Robert]

A readable and reasonably promising setup, undermined by hurried character development, typographical carelessness and a resolution that treats entrenched institutional capture as though it were a gang of villains waiting for the heroine to summon the cavalry.

[Lindy Holmes]

Grim police work in a beautiful location.

Enjoyable thriller with believable characters. Kate is gutsy and likeable and the town should be happy to have her there. Go girl.

[Louise]

a good read

[Albertine]

A quite enjoyable read. No two ways!

[Bluesheedy]

An interesting story, has a few twists and turns to keep the reader guessing. I'll be interested in reading book two when it comes out.

[Griff]

Not so much Did Not Finish as could not continue after reading the word 'adorable' twice in as many pages. Is Henry Harper even Australian? He sounds more like a mid-50s American tourist wandering around Stratford cooing about how quaint everything is. Oh look, there's an adorable miner's cottage. How adorable. He then compounds that by making the main character (a seasoned police woman) almost crash her car so she can throw up in public before she reaches her new job. Why? Because of her anxiety... FFS.