Gunnawah

"A classic Aussie crime novel arrives like a full-throttle ute crashing through a fence. I devoured it like a Pine Lime Splice on a hot day." — Kaz Cooke
"It's amazing to see what Ronni Salt can do when she's freed from a 280-character word limit." — Shaun Micallef
It's 1974 in the Riverina.
The weather is scorching,
but the body in the Murray River is stone cold.
A gripping crime thriller about guns, drugs, and a young woman who’s dead on the money.
When nineteen-year-old farmgirl Adelaide Hoffman applies for a cadetship at the Gunnawah Gazette, she sees it as her ticket out of a small, stifling life. The paper's owner, Valdene Bullark, recognizing something of her younger self in Adelaide, puts her straight to work.
What begins as a routine story covering an irrigation project soon leads Adelaide to a far more dangerous investigation. In farming communities, water is money, and Adelaide’s questions stir up a hornet’s nest. Someone is determined to stop her and Val from uncovering just how deep the river of corruption and crime runs.
Shady deals. Hidden agendas. A labyrinth of lies. In Gunnawah, everyone seems to have a secret, and too many are already dead quiet.
Set in the heart of rural Australia during the era of Gough Whitlam, pub brawls, and flared jeans, Gunnawah is a compelling crime thriller about corruption, guns, and drugs from the most arresting new voice in Australian Noir.
"This compelling rural crime story, set in the politically charged Australia of the 1970s, will intrigue fans of Margaret Hickey, Richard Osman, and Lainie Anderson." — Books+Publishing
"Ronni Salt's debut is historical crime fiction at its best, with a vivid sense of time and place and unforgettable characters at its core." — Newtown Review of Books