{"id":9117,"date":"2020-01-29T21:04:57","date_gmt":"2020-01-29T21:04:57","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.adambowie.com\/?p=9117"},"modified":"2020-01-29T21:04:58","modified_gmt":"2020-01-29T21:04:58","slug":"scrublands-by-chris-hammer","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.adambowie.com\/blog\/2020\/01\/scrublands-by-chris-hammer\/","title":{"rendered":"Scrublands by Chris Hammer"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p>When I first saw <em><a href=\"https:\/\/amzn.to\/2GBfyG5\">Scrublands<\/a> <\/em>appear on bookshelves, I thought that perhaps it was the usual story of another publisher jumping on the bandwagon of Jane Harper\u2019s very successful outback crime thrillers. But towards the end of 2019, as various readers and writers compiled their \u201cbest of\u201d lists, Scrublands kept appearing. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>I\u2019m so glad I jumped in. Chris Hammer previously worked as a\nnewspaperman, and it\u2019s a newspaper journalist that we follow in this elaborate\nand terrific thriller, set in a small remote town that\u2019s borne the brunt of\nrecent tragic events. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Martin Scarsden has been sent by his paper to write a piece\non the anniversary of a horrific and seemingly motiveless killing involving the\nlocal priest shooting dead a number of locals from the steps of his church.\nOnly the quick action of the local police officer, who shot the priest dead\nhimself, seemed to prevent further deaths. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The impact on the tiny community has been immense, and Scarsden, himself on the comeback trail after an incident that left him scarred when he was on assignment in the Middle East.  This is novel about media, and the news media in general. And it doesn\u2019t paint the best picture of them. Certainly, our protagonist is flawed, constantly choosing the most journalistically opportune thing to do, rather than what might be best for the people involved. That becomes particularly complicated when he gets personally involved with characters who may or may not be involved in the broader story. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>But it\u2019s probably an honest picture of those journalistic\nmethods \u2013 hacks chasing the story at just about any cost!<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The story itself bobs and weaves, going in directions that\nyou didn\u2019t necessarily expect it to go, but never really making you think that\nanything that happens is that unlikely.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>At one point, there\u2019s a vivid description of a bush fire \u2013\nsomething that we\u2019ve come to learn all too much about in recent weeks. It\u2019s\nsuccessfully contained here, perhaps the least realistic part of the entire\nnovel!<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>This truly is a superior piece of writing, and thoroughly\nrecommended.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>When I first saw Scrublands appear on bookshelves, I thought that perhaps it was the usual story of another publisher jumping on the bandwagon of Jane Harper\u2019s very successful outback crime thrillers. But towards the end of 2019, as various readers and writers compiled their \u201cbest of\u201d lists, Scrublands kept appearing. I\u2019m so glad I [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":9118,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"cybocfi_hide_featured_image":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[108],"class_list":["post-9117","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-books","tag-books-2"],"amp_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.adambowie.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9117","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.adambowie.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.adambowie.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.adambowie.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.adambowie.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=9117"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.adambowie.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9117\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":9119,"href":"https:\/\/www.adambowie.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9117\/revisions\/9119"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.adambowie.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/9118"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.adambowie.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=9117"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.adambowie.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=9117"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.adambowie.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=9117"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}