Bay of Fires by Poppy Gee

'It was the day after Boxing Day when the fisherman found the body. The sun had barely surfaced over the ocean horizon. The crisp sand, littered with marine debris, gleamed in the day's freshness... The fisherman's were the only footprints on the beach.'

Deep in a national park on the east coast of Tasmania, the Bay of Fires is an idyllic holiday community; people come from far, and wide every summer to experience its tranquility. There are no more than a dozen shacks, and a handful of tents pitched beside the lagoon -- and secrets are hard to keep.

The fact that Sarah Avery has returned, having left her boyfriend and her job, is cause for gossip in itself. Then, the polka-dot-bikini-clad body of a young woman is found washed up on the beach, only a year after another teenage girl went missing from the same area. Journalist Hall Flynn is sent to invesitgate, and all too quickly the close-knit community turns in on itself.

Full of atmosphere and rich with visual imagery, BAY OF FIRES is a startling debut novel about isolation, human cruelty and kindness, and the need for life.

Genres: Mystery - Tasmania - Crime - Australia - Contemporary - Mystery Thriller - Thriller - Australian Author