Hello Reader

In my last newsletter I started the story of our trip from South Australia to Queensland back in 1969 including our encounter with the great train robber Ronald Biggs.

After we dropped Ronald Biggs and the man he was travelling with off in St George we continued up the Moonie Highway. It was still raining and flood water lay everywhere to the point where it was dangerous to even drift one wheel off the bitumen in fear of being bogged or worse. Not great on a narrow road not much wider than the car when another vehicle was coming towards you.

We turned onto the Carnavon Highway with the intention of going up through Surat to Roma and then further on the inland route to Emerald. Bad idea!

Dirt roads, with roadworks being carried out. At one point we came across four road-trains carrying full loads of cattle bogged to the axles. For those who don't know what a road-train is, it's a semi-trailer towing a minimum of three full sized trailers. The road workers were there with a grader and roller creating a detour through the black soil mud around the stranded trucks.

We managed to pass them using the detour and continued on until we came to a flooded river crossing. There was a new bridge over the river but the road onto it and off it wasn't finished, leaving a large gap unfilled making the bridge impassable. We camped off the side of the road under a patch of gum trees with hope the water would go down enough overnight for us to continue on via the low-level old bridge.

Unfortunately the river level had risen overnight to a point where if we stayed where we were we'd soon be surrounded by flood water. Dad and my brother Alf walked down to the new bridge in search of a way across. They discovered two long slabs of timber wide enough for the truck tyres to sit on which someone had left there. Most likely used to cross the new bridge by others before us.

Using the slabs of timber to cover the gap between the road and the bridge we got the car and caravan over, then the Land Rover and trailer, followed by the truck. Those slabs groaned and cracked under the trucks weight but we got it onto the bridge then with the same method all three vehicles down the other side. After this close encounter with being stuck we went East and up the centre.

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Writing Update

I have formatted Death and the Devil, book five in The Mara Mysteries into Scrivener. Edits are going along slow, due to other commitments, so far up to chapter 12. In this book Sergeant Mick Ryan has a bigger part in the investigation and more of his background is revealed. Release date expected December 2026.

On other writing news, I've been combing through my archived files and came across another of Detective Bannon's earlier cases. In this one he partners with Detective Reynolds to investigate the murder of a prospector at a small gold mining town near Ararat where the current sergeant is none other than Sergeant Clifford Riley who in the Mara Mysteries is a Detective in Mildura. Have you ever wondered why Riley doesn't like Bannon and think there is past encounter lurking there somewhere. Well this will tell the story. I'm hoping to also have this book released in December 2026.

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The Devil's Revenge

The latest in The Mara Mysteries available now.

Some men hide in plain sight. That's what makes them dangerous.

When Detective Senior Sergeant Mark Bannon is pulled from his posting in country Victoria and handed a cold case by Detective Superintendent Turner. A fourteen-year-old girl raped and murdered in an empty house for sale in Cheltenham. He inherits more than a file. He inherits a failed investigation, and the uncomfortable suspicion that whoever did this won’t stop at one.
The first breakthrough doesn't come from the case file. It comes from a second body. A woman found strangled on St Kilda Beach, her night at a local hotel ending the way the killer planned from the moment he followed her.
As Bannon, Sergeant Mick Ryan, and Detective Sergeant Brad Kingsley piece together the evidence, the investigation pulls them deeper into a world of lonely victims, buried secrets, and a man who selects his targets. And with another woman already in his sights, time is not on their side. The killer is organised, methodical, and hiding in plain sight behind a tradie's ute, a dating profile, and a patient, predatory calm.
But Bannon has his own complications. A divorce grinding through the courts. Three children he barely sees. A posting at the end of all this that may or may not be waiting. And in a small town north of Melbourne, a missing sergeant and a web of corruption that someone very much wants left alone.
A gripping police procedural set in Melbourne's bayside suburbs, where the danger wears an ordinary face and the cost of the job is measured in more than time.
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​This is the fourth book in the Mara Mysteries Series.​
This book is written in Australian English. It contains Australian slang, Australian Idioms, Australian wit and humour. You will find a glossary of all Australian terms used at the end of the book.

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Freebies

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Have you checked out our website?

I have paperback copies signed or unsigned of all my books available through my website or direct through my Payhip store. Including glossy cover paperback copies of the short story Murder on the Murray.

Also the ebook of Betrayal in the Dust is now only available through my website.

Buy Direct

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The Mara Mysteries - Books 1, 2, 3 and 4.

The Mara Mysteries Additional - A Weekend at Joe's

Available Now Through Amazon

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Kelly Oliver writes a good mystery.

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Unique Stories from Australia's Outback