Black River (Rose Riley, #1) in Aussie Readers

Jun 03, 2022 Brenda rated it liked it

Shelves: aussie-authors, sent-by-publisher, mystery, 3500-2022, reviewing-by-request, debut, 2022-release, arc, crime, own-read

Summer in Sydney was hot and while it was school holidays the boarding school beside the Parramatta River was quiet. But when a young teenager discovered the body of a woman, wrapped in black plastic, it pointed to a serial killer who was killing women in Sydney. Adam Bowman was a journalist but had grown up with his father being a teacher of the boarding school and knew the grounds intricately. He snuck in the back way when he heard the police were at the school, to get some photos of the scene ...more

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Jun 14, 2022 Bree T rated it really liked it

Shelves: arc, mystery, thriller, crime, suspense, australian

It’s been a while since I read a good crime novel – I have to be in the mood for one, especially if I feel like it’s going to be one that increases anxiety!

When a young teenager discovers a body wrapped in plastic on the grounds of a boarding school, it has the media in a frenzy as they believe it to be the next victim of a killer that has been dubbed “BMK” – the Blue Moon Killer, who has two victims already so far, found at different places on the same river. In each case, it was clear the BMK It’s been a while since I read a good crime novel – I have to be in the mood for one, especially if I feel like it’s going to be one that increases anxiety!

When a young teenager discovers a body wrapped in plastic on the grounds of a boarding school, it has the media in a frenzy as they believe it to be the next victim of a killer that has been dubbed “BMK” – the Blue Moon Killer, who has two victims already so far, found at different places on the same river. In each case, it was clear the BMK had stalked their victims for some time, knew their movements and patterns. But other than the victims both being young and female, the task force put together to investigate cannot find any other link. The most recent victim is also young and female, the daughter of the chaplain of the school but other than that, there are a few things that seem to suggest that this crime is a bit different from the others. There’s enough to suggest that it could be BMK – but also a few things that raise some questions.

Journalist Adam Bowman is not a crime reporter but for his teen years, he lived on the grounds of the boarding school where the latest body has been found and that’s enough for his editor to send him out there looking for a different angle. Adam uses his intimate knowledge of the school to bypass the police cordon and get access that no other journalists get and it’s enough to get the cops to offer him a deal – if he helps them, they’ll make sure he will get proper access to stories, when the time comes. But he has to sit on things that they ask him to. For Adam, it seems like an idea situation – he’s in his 40s, works the graveyard shift, has never really gone anywhere in his career. Working with them in this situation can lead to perhaps even being able to write a book about this, in the future. He has no idea that Rose Riley, the Detective Sergeant, has her own suspicions about Adam, who always seems to be in the right place to make an interesting discovery and knows this area intimately – something they’ve already established that the killer does too. She’s definitely keeping an eye on him.

This was a really solid debut and I enjoyed a lot of things about the story. It was great to see a different setting – although the story still revolves around wealth and privilege, with the crime scene being the grounds of an exclusive boarding school where the rich and elite send their children, it was in a location I don’t see much in fiction, on the Parramatta River in Sydney’s west. Even though Adam went to the school, he wasn’t from a background of wealth and was there because his father taught at the school and the family lived in one of the houses on the grounds, which was an option a lot of staff took advantage of. The school is also the source of a trauma from his childhood and he didn’t finish out his schooling there although few people know what happened.

I really liked the dynamic between Adam and Rose although at times, Adam is quite oblivious to some of Rose’s deep suspicions. She knows they cannot afford to make a mistake – the eyes of the city are on them to solve this and solve it quickly, before there are more victims. The crimes are deeply disturbing, although there are things about the third victim that are different from the previous two. Her boss is the sort of man who has stuck his neck out before and they need to make sure that they have investigated everything thoroughly and not missed a single thing that could potentially lead to the perpetrator getting away or being at large long enough to select another victim and carry out another murder. Sometimes though, it seems like the list of potential suspects includes almost everyone that they talk to who is still on the grounds of the school over the summer break and it’s up to them to find what they need to narrow it down.

This definitely kept me guessing the whole way through. I’m not sure if it’s intended to be a series but I feel as though it could go that way if the author wanted to bring Rose and the other police like O’Neill and Patel back as well as Adam to work the journalist angle but it also works perfectly well as a standalone novel. Either way, I definitely will be reading Matthew Spence’s next book!

***A copy of this book was provided by the publisher for the purpose of an honest review***
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Aug 26, 2023 Catsalive rated it really liked it

Shelves: 2023, amw

I enjoyed this debut crime novel. I found it a bit slow-going at first but once I started to engage with the characters I found it quite compelling. I loved their movements around Sydney - the setting around my local suburbs really pulled me in (mine even got a mention). The procedural part of the investigation was very well done & the journalistic approach seemed realistic - right place, right time, right insider knowledge. I did wonder why they weren't looking at the weird guy a bit sooner, th ...more

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Nov 21, 2022 Rina rated it really liked it

This was one of the books I read because of #bookstagrammademereadit.

Set in Sydney, where a young woman was found murdered at an elite boarding school near the Parramatta River where a serial killer was known to prey on victims, it was a race against time for the police taskforce.

Detective Sergeant Rose Riley and Adam Bowman, the journalist, were both interesting characters. I agreed with a lot of reviews out there that said they enjoyed the dynamics between the police taskforce and media in t ...more

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Jan 25, 2023 Averil rated it it was amazing

Shelves: 2022

This is a fantastic debut crime fiction novel. I won't even hold it against the author that he used to write for The Australian (a right-wing, climate-change-denying newspaper).
The two main characters, detective Riley and journo Bowman, are an interesting pairing that could go a long way in a series. Spencer gave them enough complexity to keep us interested in them without detracting from the plot.
I also enjoyed the locational nature of the book, focusing on the interconnectedness of Sydney's w ...more

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