Crimson Lake is where people with dark pasts come to disappear—and where others vanish into thin air…

Four young boys are left alone in a hotel room while their parents dine downstairs. When Sara Farrow checks on the children at midnight, her son is missing.

Distrustful of the police, Sara turns to Crimson Lake’s unlikeliest private investigators—disgraced cop Ted Conkaffey and convicted killer Amanda Pharrell. For Ted, the case couldn’t have come at a worse time. Two years ago a false accusation robbed him of his career, his reputation, and most importantly, his family. But now Lillian, the daughter he barely knows, is coming to stay in his ramshackle cottage by the lake.

Ted must dredge up the area’s worst characters to find the missing boy. The clock is ticking, and the danger he uncovers could well put his own child in deadly peril.

My Review

I’m totally bereft! What am I going to do without my daily fix of Ted Conkaffey and Amanda Pharrell while I walk the dog? 5km round the park, my new Shokz earbuds in my ears, my mind in Australia with the crocs, the mosquitoes, the swamps, and the corrupt police. Maybe not so much the corrupt police. And of course my two favourite private investigators, the geese and Celine the overweight white dog that Ted rescued after she was dumped at the shelter by the pedo in the previous book. Gone By Midnight is the third and last in the Crimson Lake trilogy. I need more.

Ted has finally managed to spend time with his three-year-old daughter Lilian without ex-wife Kelly and her boyfriend as they have gone to a yoga retreat for a few days. While Ted is investigating the disappearance of an eight-year-old boy, Lilian is babysat by Val the ‘morgue woman’. Lilian loves dog Celine and the geese. Val becomes her new Nana. Everything is fine. Ted may even find romance.

But with no trace of the missing boy, things are starting to turn weird. His mother (who has hired Ted and Amanda to find him) seems too unemotional. There is more than one suspect – but is either of them guilty? The police seem to want it to be Ted so they can hound him yet again, and Officer Fisher is obsessed with Amanda after her friend Pip was killed in the last book.

It’s all very exciting and entertaining, but it’s the characters that make the books. They are all so brilliantly written and I want to know what will happen to them – please.

About the Author

Candice Fox is the middle child of a large, eccentric family from Sydney’s western suburbs composed of half-adopted and pseudo siblings. The daughter of a parole officer and an enthusiastic foster-carer, Candice spent her childhood listening around corners to tales of violence, madness and evil as her father relayed his work stories to her mother and older brothers.

As a cynical and trouble-making teenager, her crime and gothic fiction writing was an escape from the calamity of her home life. She was constantly in trouble for reading Anne Rice in church and scaring her friends with tales from Australia’s wealth of true crime writers.

Bankstown born and bred, she failed to conform to military life in a brief stint as an officer in the Royal Australian Navy at age eighteen. At twenty, she turned her hand to academia, and taught high school through two undergraduate and two postgraduate degrees. Candice lectures in writing at the University of Notre Dame, Sydney, while undertaking a PhD in literary censorship and terrorism.

When former police detective Ted Conkaffey was wrongly accused of abducting Claire Bingley, he hoped the Queensland rainforest town of Crimson Lake would be a good place to disappear. But nowhere is safe from Claire’s devastated father.

Dale Bingley has a brutal revenge plan all worked out – and if Ted doesn’t help find the real abductor, he’ll be its first casualty.

Meanwhile, in a dark roadside hovel called the Barking Frog Inn, the bodies of two young bartenders lie on the beer-sodden floor. It’s Detective Inspector Pip Sweeney’s first homicide investigation – complicated by the arrival of private detective Amanda Pharrell to ‘assist’ on the case. Amanda’s conviction for murder a decade ago has left her with some odd behavioural traits, top-to-toe tatts – and a keen eye for killers . . .

For Ted and Amanda, the hunt for the truth will draw them into a violent dance with evil. Redemption is certainly on the cards – but it may well cost them their lives . . .

My Review

As soon as I finished book one I downloaded book two from Borrowbox. Then I started listening straight away. When I finished it I downloaded book three.

I love this series and I love the narrator Lani Tupu. In fact he could be one of my favourite narrators ever. He speaks as Ted in the first person, while Amanda is narrated in the third person. Which brings me onto the characters themselves. Ted is just an ordinary guy, very tall, dark and supposedly handsome. He was a police officer with the drug squad in Sydney, Australia, until he was arrested for the abduction and rape of 13-year-old Claire Bingley that is. He lost his job, his wife, his daughter and his freedom. After eight months and insufficient evidence, he was released, and moved north to a remote house in the crocodile-infested wetlands of Crimson Lake.

But even though he is innocent, trial by media and the public is worse than the courts. Ted is harassed, beaten and threatened, by vigilantes and the police. But now we have someone else out to get him – Claire Bingley’s father Dale – because if Ted can’t find the real perpetrator, Dale will exact his own revenge. There are those who believe in Ted’s innocence, but they need proof.

In the meantime private investigator Amanda Pharrell, who spent eight years in prison for the murder of a teenage friend, has employed Ted as her sidekick. In Redemption the pair are investigating the killing of two bar staff at the Barking Frog Inn. For Detective Inspector Pip Sweeney, it’s her first homicide investigation and Amanda could be a help or a hindrance. Because Amanda doesn’t have an off button, she says it as it is, which is often inappropriate.

This is one of the best series I have read in years. I’ll be devastated to say goodbye to Ted and Amanda (not to mention Woman and the baby geese), but at least I have one more book to go before I need to.

About the Author

Candice Fox is the middle child of a large, eccentric family from Sydney’s western suburbs composed of half-adopted and pseudo siblings. The daughter of a parole officer and an enthusiastic foster-carer, Candice spent her childhood listening around corners to tales of violence, madness and evil as her father relayed his work stories to her mother and older brothers.

As a cynical and trouble-making teenager, her crime and gothic fiction writing was an escape from the calamity of her home life. She was constantly in trouble for reading Anne Rice in church and scaring her friends with tales from Australia’s wealth of true crime writers.

Bankstown born and bred, she failed to conform to military life in a brief stint as an officer in the Royal Australian Navy at age eighteen. At twenty, she turned her hand to academia, and taught high school through two undergraduate and two postgraduate degrees. Candice lectures in writing at the University of Notre Dame, Sydney, while undertaking a PhD in literary censorship and terrorism.

How do you move on when the world won’t let you?

12:46: Claire Bingley stands alone at a bus stop
12:47: Ted Conkaffey parks his car beside her
12:52: The girl is missing . . .

Six minutes in the wrong place at the wrong time—that’s all it took to ruin Sydney detective Ted Conkaffey’s life. Accused but not convicted of a brutal abduction,Ted is now a free man—and public enemy number one. Maintaining his innocence, he flees north to keep a low profile amidst the steamy, croc-infested wetlands of Crimson Lake.

There, Ted’s lawyer introduces him to eccentric private investigator Amanda Pharrell, herself a convicted murderer. Not entirely convinced Amanda is a cold-blooded killer, Ted agrees to help with her investigation, a case full of deception and obsession, while secretly digging into her troubled past. The residents of Crimson Lake are watching the pair’s every move… and the town offers no place to hide.

My Review

I loved this book. It’s taken me on walks with my dog and I’m sure I ended up walking further because I was so engrossed.

Ted Conkaffey was a Sydney detective, thrown out of the force after being accused of child rape and abduction. Of course we the reader know he is innocent, but his colleagues and even his wife don’t believe him. He has spent eight months on remand, but was released due to lack of physical evidence, but he can be re-arrested at any time.

So he moves north to a remote house in the crocodile-infested wetlands of Crimson Lake. Having no idea what to do next, he adopts an injured goose whom he calls Woman and her brood of goslings. Then his lawyer introduces him to private investigator Amanda Pharrell, who has served ten years for the vicious murder of her high school ‘friend’ Lauren.

Amanda has been hired to investigate the disappearance of successful but controversial author Jake Scully by his wife Stella. Ted joins Amanda in the investigation but is also interested in discovering whether she was justifiably convicted. Journalist Fabiana is more interested in looking at Ted’s conviction.

There are so many intertwining threads in this riveting book and some really fascinating characters – Ted and Amanda make an interesting if mis-matched pair. Others are not so nice (not that you could describe Amanda as remotely nice, more weird), while others are downright horrible. The two police officers who hound Ted are probably the worst.

It’s a combination of the likeable characters, particularly Ted himself, the steamy, claustrophobic setting, and the brilliant narration which make this such a great audiobook. I listened on Borrowbox and am waiting for the next instalment to become available in four days time. I can’t wait.

About the Author

Candice Fox is the middle child of a large, eccentric family from Sydney’s western suburbs composed of half-adopted and pseudo siblings. The daughter of a parole officer and an enthusiastic foster-carer, Candice spent her childhood listening around corners to tales of violence, madness and evil as her father relayed his work stories to her mother and older brothers.

As a cynical and trouble-making teenager, her crime and gothic fiction writing was an escape from the calamity of her home life. She was constantly in trouble for reading Anne Rice in church and scaring her friends with tales from Australia’s wealth of true crime writers.

Bankstown born and bred, she failed to conform to military life in a brief stint as an officer in the Royal Australian Navy at age eighteen. At twenty, she turned her hand to academia, and taught high school through two undergraduate and two postgraduate degrees. Candice lectures in writing at the University of Notre Dame, Sydney, while undertaking a PhD in literary censorship and terrorism.