The Tilt by Chris Hammer

Publisher's Synopsis

A man runs for his life in a forest.

A woman plans sabotage.

A body is unearthed.

Newly-minted homicide detective Nell Buchanan returns to her home town, annoyed at being assigned a decades-old murder - a 'file and forget'.

But this is no ordinary cold case, as the discovery of more bodies triggers a chain of escalating events in the present day. As Nell starts to join the pieces together, she begins to question how well she truly knows those closest to her. Could her own family be implicated in the crimes?

The nearer Nell comes to uncovering the secrets of the past, the more dangerous the present becomes for her, as she battles shadowy assailants and sinister forces. Can she survive this harrowing investigation and what price will she have to pay for the truth?

My Review of The Tilt by Chris Hammer

The Tilt combines the intrigue of a decades old murder with the turmoil of a fractious family history and throws in unexpected danger coming from politically motivated radical groups encumbered within the boundaries of a small community on the New South Wales - Victoria border.

Having recently been promoted to the ranks of homicide detectives, Constable Nell Buchanen is back on the job beside Detective Sergeant Ivan Lucic. The pair, who featured prominently in Treasure & Dirt are heading to the border town of Tulong which also happens to be Nell’s home town. An old skeleton has been discovered after a water regulator on the Murray River was destroyed releasing enough water to uncover the decades-old bones.

It quickly becomes obvious that Nell is going to have to separate the professional aspects from the personal in this case. Her family is entrenched in the town and anything that took place years before is going to inevitably touch her in some way. I definitely felt the “brace yourself” moment as she drove into town.

As well as the present day narrative that follows Nell’s investigation, we are treated to a couple of storylines from the past. Jimmy Waters retells the story of the summer of 1943 while we also follow the events in 15 year old Tessa Waters’ life in 1973. 

In each case, the sense of each time period feels as though it is captured perfectly. Through Jimmy’s younger eyes we get a sense of the true hardship that families back home in Australia were going through during the war as he tried to carry on the work of his absent father. Equally, the seemingly endless days of summer in the 70’s are brought to life in vivid detail. 

Each of the three storylines make up crucial parts of the mysteries contained within the town and its surroundings. The process of skipping from one timeline to the other works very effectively and has the effect of speeding the story along rather than slowing it down.

Although the case begins with the appearance of being the coldest of cold cases, it turns out that there is far more at play here. One murder, as is so often the case, is intertwined with other crimes and as the divergent tales draw together, we find ourselves suddenly facing a far more complex story.

By introducing and developing a rich cast of characters, Hammer adds a delicate poignancy to the narrative. At story’s end you realise you’ve just covered 80 years of a family’s life, gotten to know some of the most intimate secrets of some of them to the point where they have become more than merely names on a page. I was fully engaged in the fate of each of them.

The story is wonderfully plotted and proves devious as it grows in complexity. I enjoyed the way the many secrets and crimes are inexorably uncovered to provide numerous surprises that sent me reeling towards the story’s ending. It thought The Tilt was a completely absorbing Australian crime novel.