Broke Road
By (Author) Matthew Spencer
Allen & Unwin
Allen & Unwin
1st July 2025
Australia
General
Fiction
Thriller / suspense fiction
Paperback
400
Width 153mm, Height 234mm
'A tightly plotted, fast moving, beautifully written whodunnit. Broke Road is a real page-turner. I even stayed up late to finish it ... and that never happens!' Jane Caro, author of Lyrebird
A late-night phone call is never good news for Homicide Detective Sergeant Rose Riley. This time she's being sent up to the Hunter Valley, where a woman has been found dead in her home.
Rose grew up further along the valley. She knows that for every vineyard and golf course resort visited by tourists to the 'wine country', there are as many dilapidated fibro houses and drug dens, in the shadow of one of the state's largest prisons.
A media hound points the finger at the husband, angering Rose, but capturing the attention of journalist turned true crime author Adam Bowman. His book on the 'Blue Moon Killer' made him famous but the case nearly cost Rose her life, and she's not sure how she feels about seeing him again.
Suspects abound, from the grieving husband to sinister business interests and suspicious locals. But when new evidence connects the crime to an old case, Rose realises they have no time to lose. The murderer is ready to strike again.
Matthew Spencer was a journalist at The Australian for twenty years, with long stints running the Foreign News desk and as Opinion Editor. He has written for newspapers and magazines in Uganda and Kenya and been published in The Australian Financial Review and The Sydney Morning Herald.
He was born in Parramatta. The son of teachers, he lived with his sister Kate on the 320-acre campus of a boys' boarding school. Long summers on the largely deserted property while exploring the remnant bush with its tributary of the Parramatta River inspired his first novel, Black River.
Matthew lives in Sydney with his wife, Ritu Gupta, and their three children.