For the last 200 years, disturbing things have happened in the small Australian town of Wallaby Rock.
When the bodies of twin teenage football stars Benny and Jordy Thompson are discovered at the bottom of the gorge, everyone is shocked. Everyone, except 18-year-old Laura Murray, whose Irish lineage has given her the gift of sight. It’s a gift she’s never wanted. A gift that plagues her with frightening dreams of the past and a Shadow Man who lurks in the darkness.
Laura is drawn to the gorge, ignoring the warnings of her best friend Joanna and her family to stay away. As Laura's dreams grow darker, more disappearances and deaths occur, and Wallaby Rock is front-page news for all the wrong reasons.
Bad Country explores the concept of psychogeography. There has always been a strong connection between people and place. But how deeply does our geographical environment shape our emotions and behaviors?
Can evil deeds seep into the soil and the soul of the places where they occurred?
For the last 200 years, disturbing things have happened in the small Australian town of Wallaby Rock.
When the bodies of twin teenage football stars Benny and Jordy Thompson are discovered at the bottom of the gorge, everyone is shocked. Everyone, except 18-year-old Laura Murray, whose Irish lineage has given her the gift of sight. It’s a gift she’s never wanted. A gift that plagues her with frightening dreams of the past and a Shadow Man who lurks in the darkness.
Laura is drawn to the gorge, ignoring the warnings of her best friend Joanna and her family to stay away. As Laura's dreams grow darker, more disappearances and deaths occur, and Wallaby Rock is front-page news for all the wrong reasons.
Bad Country explores the concept of psychogeography. There has always been a strong connection between people and place. But how deeply does our geographical environment shape our emotions and behaviors?
Can evil deeds seep into the soil and the soul of the places where they occurred?
January 2020
Hidden by trees that hugged the edge of the river, Laura and her dog, Yogi, watched Sergeant Mick Peters step down the path from the bridge and duck under the chequered blue-and-white police tape.
Flies buzzed and crawled over dark stains covering the rocks near the water’s edge.
Laura knew what they were.
Everything had changed since she and Yogi had taken off to the waterhole that morning for a swim.
***
It was only 9.30 am, but the shimmering haze on the horizon held the promise of yet another scorcher. After a wet start to the summer, the last week had been marked by a return to long, hot days, and the swimming hole was one of the few places to cool off, but the heat wasn’t the only reason she’d come.
The pools were a tricky place to reach. Laura and Yogi had slid down the path from the cliff above, and Laura was covered in sticky sweat. The only other way in was via a longer hike upriver from the bridge and involved clambering over large rocks and logs.
Her face hot and flushed, Laura peered at the trees and bushes. No one was around. Stripping off her shorts, she stashed her battered hand-me-down mobile phone into the toes of her scuffed sneakers before stepping into the water dressed only in her underpants and a well-worn Ball Park Music t-shirt. She stood for a moment and let the gentle waves cool her feet as her toes scrunched the sand before she swam to the other side.
On the bank, she reached for a rope hanging from a large tree. Small and slender for her age, Laura remembered the pride she’d felt years ago when she could finally reach the rope without her older sister’s help. Now, at eighteen, Laura was an expert at launching herself into the murky water, rife with the hidden danger of snags, submerged trees, and rocks. It was still a rite of passage for local kids to take the plunge.
A baby’s cry echoed through the silence of the gully, the sound bouncing off rock walls. Laura snatched at the rope as she stumbled on the slippery bank. Heart thumping, she turned in time to catch a glimpse of a long feathery tail disappearing into the scrub. A lyrebird. The beautiful and shy creatures were masters of mimicking sounds. Breathing heavily, Laura returned her gaze to the water as she repositioned her grip.
Since her birthday in early December, everything felt different, and yet the same. Laura could legally go to the pub if she wanted to. But who with? Buy herself a car. But what with? Make her own decisions – sure – but only if her mother agreed. And the dreams. They hadn’t stopped just because she’d reached adulthood. In fact, over the last year, they’d gotten worse.
Her hair whipped her face as she swung out from the edge and then let go. Suspended in mid-air, Laura wished she had the power to freeze time, to remain carefree, young, and untroubled by dark thoughts or the difficult year that lay ahead. Clutching her knees to her chest, Laura dive-bombed to perfection.
A sharp pain shot through her foot as she clambered out for another go. Grabbing her toes, Laura muttered a colourful word she’d learned from her grandfather. Peering at the water to see what she’d stumbled over, she spied gnarled and twisted tree roots that snaked their way from the riverbank into the pool. Something was wedged between them. Intrigued, she wriggled it free, pulling out a small card. As she wiped the mud away, the outline of a football player, and what appeared to be the West Tigers’ logo, appeared.
Sitting on a rock to examine her find, a loud splashing noise behind her announced Yogi had also launched himself into the refreshing water. Laura called him and then shrieked as he bounded out of the water, shaking himself dry and spraying Laura with cold droplets.
Wiping her eyes, her focus returned to the card in her hands. As she scratched away dirt from the edge of the flimsy cardboard, three letters appeared – ’BJT’. A strangled sound escaped her as she realised this belonged to them. Without warning, the images from her dream came flooding back.
This is what jolted her awake last night, leaving her confused and uneasy.
Her restless night combined with today’s warm weather had driven Laura to the waterhole. She’d hoped a swim would clear her head and seeing the river in daylight would prove it was only a horrible nightmare.
The images refused to stop. Closing her eyes once more, Laura focused all her energy on pushing them away, but it was no good. They were on constant repeat. It was like being forced to watch the trailer for a movie over and over again, but instead of Laura choosing when to stop, someone was doing it for her.
Perhaps going to the bridge would reassure her it was all a product of what she hoped was an over-active imagination. Pulling on her shorts and shoes and shoving the card in her back pocket, Laura followed the bank upriver, toward the bridge.
As she got closer, Laura could hear a commotion. Stepping carefully so as not to make noise, she spied people swarming up and down the opposite bank. She hesitated for a moment before moving behind the trees to silently view the activity around her. Bubbles of anxiety swirled in her stomach as she drew Yogi close.
Laura saw Sergeant Peters, head of the local police force, make his way down the path. Only a few weeks ago, Sergeant Peters had stopped her as she drove home on her Ps, congratulating her on passing her driving test and reminding her about needing to pay close attention when navigating rough country roads.
Laura saw his shoulders move up and down as if he were sucking in long, deep breaths. He headed for the officers taking photos and collecting evidence.
Laura covered her nose as the pungent, tangy scent of blood wafted across the hot air to her hiding spot. Her eyes were drawn to the rocks, and she pictured her friends lying there, blood pooling around their heads. She smothered a sob with her hand. The noise startled a lizard that darted out from the trees and scurried to the shelter of a nearby boulder.
Keep it together, she told herself, her pulse galloping.
Laura recognised her neighbour Jacquie, Wallaby Rock’s chief gossip and self-proclaimed town blogger, peering over the bridge and chatting with other locals. Jacquie would soon broadcast the gory news across town, including detailed descriptions of the reactions and views of everyone she saw and spoke to.
Sergeant Peters glanced up at the bridge where reporters and television crews had joined Jacquie and the local townspeople – his head dropped. After a few seconds, he put his hands on his hips and stood with his eyes shut before looking out across the river and letting fly with a choice swear word. Laura sank back behind a bush and held her breath, but in the next instant, the brawny officer turned on his heels and attacked the climb to the top.
Biting down on her bottom lip, Laura fingered the footy card in her back pocket, making sure it was still there. Was this happening?
While keen for a closer view, she didn’t want to be quizzed about what brought her to the bridge. The police had set up barriers on the opposite side to stop people from coming down. They didn’t want anyone poking around the riverbank and interfering with their investigation. If they spotted her on the other side, there’d be questions … questions she didn’t want to answer. She pictured the look of incredulity that would grow on the face of Sergeant Peters if she told him her dream had led her there. She could lie and say she’d decided to head to the bridge after swimming because the path was easier to climb, but she didn’t think testing her acting ability in front of the town’s senior police officer was a smart idea. And thinking about what her mother would say if she were interviewed by the police about a potential homicide gave her another reason to hesitate.
Homicide? That’s how they described a murder, wasn’t it? The word rattled around in her brain like a ball pinging off the sides of the pinball machine her father kept in the shed. Shaking her head, Laura tried to still the noise and a wave of sadness washed over her. She’d seen enough. It was best to stay quiet and wait for the right moment before heading back to the waterhole and then home.
Bad Country by Kim Ulrick is a cozy mystery set in the small, fictional town of Wallaby Rock, Australia. Eighteen-year-old Laura Murray has prophetic dreams, and after a nightmare in which two of her friends, teenage twin boys Benny and Jordy Thompson have died at the gorge, she is compelled to see for herself if it is true. Despite seeing their bodies, she continues to be drawn to the gorge. She learns that the gorge is significant to both her family and the Thompsons due to a murder that occurred there in 1822, but is there a connection between the death of the twins and that long-ago crime? And when more people disappear, can their demise be explained rationally, or is there a supernatural entity responsible? Will she be able to identify the Shadow Man in her nightmares before another life is lost?
The concept of psychogeography–a location’s impact on a person’s behaviors or emotions–is expanded in this story to consider how someone’s actions can have a lasting effect on the land, too. The 1822 tragedy at the gorge has created a ripple effect, claiming more lives across generations.Â
Told through multiple points of view, the reader becomes part of the community. The characters are easy to relate to: Laura’s desire to help others, a father in his grief, an investigator in his tireless determination, and parents in their fierce protection of their children. Being raised in a small town myself, I could relate to how everyone came together to support each other. Laura, in particular, is the glue holding everyone together, despite her reluctance to share what she sees in her dreams out of fear of how she will be perceived.
At times, the narrative becomes detached. Especially in the middle of the story, the passage of time is explained to the reader rather than shown. There are large sections of the book that are written without any dialogue, telling the reader what happens in the months between significant events. I found that this caused my attention to wane. However, both the beginning and the end of the book flow very well, balancing both dialogue and prose and moving at a fast pace.
Overall, this story was enjoyable to read. I would recommend it to young adults, as well as adult fans of cozy mysteries. Those who appreciate small-town settings, tales of family and community bonds, and magical realism will feel at home in the chapters.