S.R.White: White Ash Ridge, Headline, paperback 

I have a weakness for crime novels set in foreign countries such as Australia for example. S.R.White's detective Dana Rosso does not quite match Garry Disher's Hirsch or Chris Hammer' Nell Buchanan but it's a close call.

 White Ash Ridge is the name of a hotel in the Australian wilderness where the body of a guest is discovered during a heatwave. The hotel only had 5 guests who attended a meeting of a charity plus the hotel owner and his daughter, so Dana Rosso knows when tasked with the investigation that the murderer is most likely among these 6 people. It does not help that Rosso investigated the murder of the charity founders son which did not go too well caĺling for a tense first meeting between the media savvy mother and Rosso.

 I found the unraveĺling of the case  very well done, it certainly kept me guessing whose motive was enough for such an act, a very atmospheric portrait of the surroundings and an excellent crime novel.