High Wire by Candice Fox

Publisher's Synopsis

A notorious unmarked track through outback Australia, the ‘Wire’ crosses slabs of lawless land, body-dumping grounds and mobile-phone blackspots.

Harvey Buck is certainly desperate. Racing to be with his dying girlfriend, he encounters Clare Holland, whose car has broken down. He offers the hapless traveller a ride . . . and then their nightmare begins.

The pair are ambushed by a vengeful crew - and strapped into bomb vests. As part of a deadly game, Harvey and Clare are forced to commit a series of increasingly murderous missions, or else be blown to smithereens.

Senior Sergeant Edna Norris is dealing with a runaway teenager; not an unusual job in a place where people go to disappear. But an unfolding crime spree turns this outback cop’s night into a fight for survival. Hot on Harvey and Clare’s trail, Edna finds a burnt-out car, a missing woman, a bank robbery and a bullet-riddled body.

And this road trip from hell has only just begun . . .

My Review of High Wire by Candice Fox

High Wire is Outback Gothic at its bleakly isolated best. The wide open expanses of the Australian outback leaves those who travel the lonely roads exposed to attack with little chance of help from passersby. When the ambush is planned and well executed, the feeling of hopelessness is even greater and the tension multiplies. This is a thriller that starts out with a jolt and then inexorably ups the tension page by page.

The High Wire is a barely-known dirt road running from Sydney to Broome through the middle of the country. It’s used as a “kind of shortcut for losers and drug runners”. It’s a dangerous track to traverse, a lawless environment where you regularly find burned out or abandoned cars along the way.

Harvey Buck knows the track and is equipped to survive most encounters along the way. Clare Holland has had the misfortune of breaking down, her car going up in flames and Harvey stops to offer her a lift.

Their car is brought to a sudden stop, all four tyres blown out by the road spikes laid across the track, ambushed by three men in balaclavas. Suddenly, Harvey’s contingencies for survival on the High Wire are blown to smithereens. 

Senior Sergeant Edna Norris patrols from her one cop station, having to cover an unbelievably large region of Australia’s outback. She’s used to getting called out to trouble on the Wire. So when she finds Clare’s burnt out car and, some time later, Harvey’s abandoned car she starts forming a picture in her mind about what might have happened. It’s not a great picture and she commences slowly following the worrying trail.

The incidents on the High Wire aren’t random acts of violence. As the danger increases and the stakes are raised we’re gradually made aware of both Harvey’s and Clare’s respective pasts. The former soldier who served in Afghanistan and the Police Commissioner’s wife have had a storied past and past deeds have indeed brought them to this perilous situation.

In Harvey Buck and Edna Norris we have two highly competent operators and Candice Fox does a great job in fleshing them out. Although they’re in separate scenes throughout the book, they’re resourceful, filled with ingenuity and passionate in what they believe in. All these traits help them when they’re under attack but also hinders them when faced by authority. They’re kind of on opposite sides of the law, yet they equally come across as the story’s main protagonists.

In some respects High Wire is a wild chase thriller through some of the harshest, most unforgiving land on earth. But there’s far more at play here. Retribution, payback, domestic abuse and guilty consciences dominate the minds of just about all the players. 

On this section of the High Wire, the action is intense as every moment leads up to a potentially cataclysmic finale. This is a strong plot that, for so much of the story, appears to be leading up to only one inevitable outcome. But then, it’s the unexpected that Candice Fox is so adept at delivering.