A dead tree, a dead farmer, and a town that buries its secrets deeper than bore water.
Who drives the story
A city-transferred Senior Constable and the first Indigenous officer in Scarborough's history, handed a body in a tree on arrival. She wants the truth even when her inspector and the whole town push her elsewhere, and she stays, on her own terms.
A twelve-year-old searching for his missing dog who instead finds the body in the Scar Tree. His eye for the green LandCruiser helps crack the case, and by the end he's carving his initials into the very tree that held a corpse.
The town's richest landowner, owner of the grain cooperative, a man with a gold signet ring and a monopoly on water and grain transport. He murdered Leo Fenn to protect his hold on the district and confessed without a flicker of remorse.
Jack's twenty-four-year-old son, a drinker and reckless driver who washed the mud off his LandCruiser and claimed a stolen rifle wasn't his. He helped dump the body under his father's orders, then broke down and testified for a reduced sentence.
A 58-year-old grain farmer, six weeks dead in a tree by the time we meet him. Secretive, indebted, and secretly negotiating to sell his farm to a Sydney conglomerate, a move that cost him his life.
Leo's wife, who reported him missing and later broke down to admit his secret deal. She sells the farm, secures the district's water rights, and moves to town feeling lighter despite the grief.
Also in the story
Dana's laconic offsider with twenty years on the job, who knows exactly how deep Scarborough buries its secrets. He warns her the old families will close ranks; the case proves him right.
Will's seventeen-year-old sister, working part-time at the roadhouse. Her sighting of Luke washing mud from his LandCruiser the morning after Leo vanished becomes a key thread.
Dana's grandmother on the outlying mission land, keeper of the Scar Tree's older stories. She frames the tree as a place that has held her people's stories since before the fences went up.
Dana's superior, who pressures her to chase a transient drifter instead of the Carmodys. Dana refuses, noting the drifter was in custody in Dubbo on the murder night.
How they are connected
She wants the truth even when her inspector and the whole town push her elsewhere, and she stays, on her own terms.
He murdered Leo Fenn to protect his hold on the district and confessed without a flicker of remorse.
Jack's twenty-four-year-old son, a drinker and reckless driver who washed the mud off his LandCruiser and claimed a stolen rifle wasn't his.
Leo's wife, who reported him missing and later broke down to admit his secret deal.
Dana's laconic offsider with twenty years on the job, who knows exactly how deep Scarborough buries its secrets.
He warns her the old families will close ranks; the case proves him right.
Will's seventeen-year-old sister, working part-time at the roadhouse.
Her sighting of Luke washing mud from his LandCruiser the morning after Leo vanished becomes a key thread.
Her sighting of Luke washing mud from his LandCruiser the morning after Leo vanished becomes a key thread.
Dana's grandmother on the outlying mission land, keeper of the Scar Tree's older stories.
Go deeper
Water is power · Towns that bury things · The tree that remembers · Fathers, sons, and inherited sins
Themes explainedThe full story act by act, the ending explained and a quick quiz.
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