Author(s): Helen FitzGerald

Crime Fiction

Single-mother Fran returns to her sleepy hometown to care for her dying father when a devastating bush fire breaks out. A heartbreaking disaster-noir thriller from the bestselling author of The Cry.
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Fran hates her hometown, and she thought she'd escaped. But her father is ill, and needs care. Her relationship is over, and she hates her dead-end job in the city, anyway.

She returns home to nurse her dying father, her distant teenage daughter in tow for the weekends. There, in the sleepy town of Ash Mountain, childhood memories prick at her fragile self-esteem, she falls in love for the first time, and her demanding dad tests her patience, all in the unbearable heat of an Australian summer. As past friendships and rivalries are renewed, and new ones forged, Fran's tumultuous home life is the least of her worries, when old crimes rear their heads and a devastating bushfire ravages the town and all of its inhabitants...

Simultaneously a warm, darkly funny portrait of small-town life - and a woman and a land in crisis - and a shocking and truly distressing account of a catastrophic event that changes things forever, Ash Mountain is a heart-breaking slice of domestic noir, and a disturbing disaster thriller that you will never forget...
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Praise for Helen FitzGerald

'The plotting is intricate and beautifully handled, and the narrative pace is absolutely breakneck ... a wonderful, energetic, hard-hitting and deeply funny novel' The Big Issue

'Shocking, gripping and laugh-out-loud hilarious' Erin Kelly

'The main character is one of the most extraordinary you'll meet between the pages of a book' Ian Rankin

'A dark, comic masterpiece which manages to be both excruciatingly tense and laugh out loud funny at the same time' Mark Edwards

'Outrageous, extremely funny and ultimately devastating' Ambrose Parry

'Fabulously transgressive and completely unique' Mark Billingham

'The classic thriller gets a hell of a twist' Heat

'FitzGerald writes like a more focused Irvine Welsh or a less misogynist Philip Roth' Daily Telegraph