Wimmera cover art

Wimmera

The bestselling Australian debut from the Crime Writers' Association Dagger winner

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Wimmera

By: Mark Brandi
Narrated by: Fabio Motta
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About this listen

 SMALL TOWN. BIG SECRET.

An unforgettable literary crime debut that brings the darkness in an Australian country town vividly to life, as it slowly reveals its devastating secrets.

In the long, hot summer of 1989, Ben and Fab are best friends.

Growing up in a small country town, they spend their days playing cricket, yabbying in local dams, wanting a pair of Nike Air Maxes and not talking about how Fab's dad hits him, or how the sudden death of Ben's next-door neighbour unsettled him. Almost teenagers, they already know some things are better left unsaid.

Then a newcomer arrived in the Wimmera. Fab reckoned he was a secret agent and he and Ben staked him out. Up close, the man's shoulders were wide and the veins in his arms stuck out, blue and green. His hands were enormous, red and knotty. He looked strong. Maybe even stronger than Fab's dad. Neither realised the shadow this man would cast over both their lives.

Twenty years later, Fab is still stuck in town, going nowhere but hoping for somewhere better. Then a body is found in the river, and Fab can't ignore the past any more.

'Very little fiction is as emotionally true as this. WIMMERA is a dark and disturbing story from a substantial new talent.' SATURDAY PAPER

'This is literary crime fiction at its best.' BOOKS+PUBLISHING

WINNER OF THE 2016 CRIME WRITERS' ASSOCIATION DEBUT DAGGER (UK)
WINNER OF THE 2018 INDIE DEBUT FICTION AWARD

SHORTLISTED FOR LITERARY FICTION BOOK OF THE YEAR, ABIA AWARDS 2018
SHORTLISTED FOR THE MATT RICHELL AWARD FOR NEW WRITER OF THE YEAR, ABIA AWARDS 2018 Coming of Age Crime Fiction Fiction Genre Fiction Literary Fiction Mystery Psychological Thriller & Suspense Crime Sports

Critic Reviews

Given the substantial list
of award wins and shortlistings that the unpublished
manuscript has already received, including the Crime
Writers' Association's Debut Dagger Award, it's clear
that the reader is in the hands of a master storyteller.
Comparisons are already being made to Jane Harper's
The Dry and Dennis Lehane's Mystic River. This is literary
crime fiction at its best.
written with great delicacy and deliberate restraint
This is a really solid read that gets better as it goes on. Believe me, as the tension rises you'll feel this one right in the guts.
Congratulations to this debut Australian author, Mark Brandi. This well-plotted tale lets the reader see how evil can be so pervasive and affect the lives of innocent children, but also how true friendship can alter your life forever.
If you like reading stories that will stay with you for days, put this onto you're to be read list.
Wimmera is a dark and melancholy coming-of-age story / murder mystery from a talented new voice in Australian crime fiction. Incorporating some iconic Australian elements, the story is like time-travel back to the eighties, capturing the quintessential rural Australian spirit of the time. With some very dark elements running through the story, it may not appeal to all readers, but I found it a gripping and haunting read and am looking forward to reading more from this author in future.
Very little fiction is as emotionally true as this.
Wimmera makes excellent use of atmospheric rural Australia to weave a gothic story with a strongly rooted sense of place.
This book carried me along very quickly and I read it in almost one sitting captured by the tension of wanting to know how the boys handle the menace and what happens next.
If you like reading stories that will stay with you for days, put this onto your to be read list.
Review
Wide open skies, hidden country lanes, spooky escarpments, baking heat and bone-chilling cold - Victoria's Wimmera district is ripe for use as a backdrop for a novel.
Review
absorbing debut novel
Brandi's brilliance lies in the sparsity of the details, allowing the readers minds to make the necessary leaps to colour between the lines as though we too are part of the township, a bystander of tragedy in an astonishingly accurate portrait of small town Australia; so accurate that if we were to open our closets and push back behind the winter coats we may just see Wimmera's skeletons staring back at us.
Wimmera may well be destined to become an Australian classic. This is a tale with substance. True, at its core it is a crime novel, and yet it is so much more.
All stars
Most relevant
The author creates accurately the feelings and uncertainties of adolescence. The relentless heat of the Australian bush is so well depicted that you can feel it, and the way the story weaves itself around the crux of the plot keeps the reader glued to the story.

compelling

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I read this off the back of reading ‘Less’ so it was a tall order to hit a mark that would leave me feeling satisfied. Firstly I was disarmed by Brandi’s extraordinary ability to capture the very essence of what it was like growing up in Australia in the 70s and 80s. The innocence of the 2 main characters and the business of negotiating childhood is exquisite.
But the darkness that creeps into their lives is so subtle that the growing tension leaves you on edge and yet totally ill prepared for the devastating conclusion. No book has ever had me in tears. And as Wimmera drew to a close I sobbed and sobbed.
I loved this book and felt profoundly moved by Fabio Motta’s gentle tender read. His narration provided perfect nuance to Brandi’s story of youthful innocence betrayed and destroyed beyond all recognition.

Exquisitely beautiful but devastatingly tragic.

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Really well plotted. Great Aussie colloquialisms. Written with discretion and full of emotion.

I'll remember this book for a very long time

Well Worth the Read

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Growing up in the 80's and 90's Victoria this story had some nostalgic elements. At times I was gripped and wanted more, but the end just didn't quite work for me. Fab's family history and the sentencing just didn't quite come together. I enjoyed the book and would recommend, however, don't expect a feel good experience.

Mixed feelings

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would have been better if the reader was Australin as it was strange listening to Aussie slang with a South African accent

intreaging

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