How refreshing to discover a stunning new crime novel from a debut author, one that not only ticks all the right boxes for suspense, misdirection, authentic characters, a compelling plot and brilliant quality writing, but is ALSO written by a First Nations author. MELALEUCA (Harper Collins 2025) is by Angie Faye Martin, an author of Kooma, Kamilaroi and European heritage, and her first book is a propulsive page-turner, a rural police procedural that seamlessly incorporates two timelines in a story about race, power, intergenerational trauma, historical brutality and limitations, and contemporary issues such as addiction, dislocation, ambition, corruption, rural communities, policing, societal norms and risk-taking.
Indigenous Detective Renee Taylor returns from her big city job in Brisbane to her small hometown on a compassionate secondment to allow her to care for her unwell mother until a permanent carer can be organised. She expects a quiet time of traffic violations, graffiti, and the odd drunk and disorderly. But almost as soon as she arrives, a young woman is found murdered near the creek on the outskirts of town.
It makes sense for Renee to put on her Detective hat and lead the investigation into the case. Fairly early on, she discovers an unsettling detail that seems – on the surface – to connect this murder to the disappearance of two other young women thirty years earlier.
The narrative then switches to a dual timeline, each of which is sharp, realistic and compelling. The earlier sections, set in the mid 1960’s, show the same rural community decades before, when Indigenous families lived mainly in the encampment outside town and were ‘employed’ as domestics and farm labourers for the pastoralists. These episodic parts of the book are drawn from intense research that is worn lightly on the page; we feel we are there, in that time, with that community, experiencing some of the racism, inequality and prejudice that was rife. We also experience the beauty of First Nations’ family, community, connection to country and commitment to each other and their ancestors.
When the story then shifts again into the 2000’s, we see the same place, but in a completely new light. Some things have changed; many have not. The shame of the past creeps into the sensibility and reality of the now, and it seems that despite many years of secrets and cover-ups, a brutal reckoning may still be due.
Australian Aboriginal literature has shone recently in certain areas, particularly literary writing, poetry, non-fiction and even romance, but MELALEUCA puts crime and policing firmly in the spotlight. I can’t wait to read the author’s next book, and I hope that we see more Indigenous authors writing in this space, especially in this way that combines not only historical atrocities but contemporary community policing.
Tense, visceral, vivid, confronting, imaginative and page-turning, MELALEUCA provides a complex mystery, a raft of red herrings, plausible suspects and a shocking and revelatory conclusion. With themes of identity, culture, stolen land and stolen lives, this book is a gripping crime story that pays respect to Aboriginal women for their strength, courage, resilience and inspiration, and is a call for justice for both historical and contemporary crimes and prejudices.