Join local author Pip Fioretti, as she discusses her newest rural crime fiction, Skull River, sequel to Bone Lands.

In Autumn of 1912, mounted trooper Augustus Hawkins arrives at his new post in the fading gold town of Colley, NSW. On his first day, he is ambushed by a hidden gunman, his junior officer is killed before his eyes and he escapes back to town to find the police station burning to the ground. Someone has it in for the mounted troopers.

A traumatised veteran of the Boer War, and a stranger to Colley, Hawkins is deeply shaken and ill-equipped to solve the case. But with only green troopers and a drunken, incompetent detective available to hunt down the murderer, he is forced to take the lead. Soon he finds that Colley hides a lot more than gold beneath its surface, for anyone who knows where to dig.

Pip weaves a story that's both a cracking murder mystery and a razor-sharp portrayal of a country on the verge of transformation, with Kate Macintosh's review on 'Readings' noting Skull River as "a splendid mix of The Man from Snowy River and Jack Reacher."

Books will be available for purchase and signing on the day.

$5.00 + booking fee

Afternoon tea on arrival.

Bookings required.

Enquiries: 8495 5028 or libraryprograms@northernbeaches.nsw.gov.au

Pip Fioretti has a professional background in visual arts, having practiced as an award-winning artist and lecturer. She took up writing in 2008 and has had three novels published in women’s fiction and been published in five languages. The first in the series, Bone Lands represented a change of genre for her and one she’ll probably stick with. She still draws, likes reading, art viewing, bushwalking and hiking.