This book had a lot of pre-publication hype and with good reason. It’s good. Brilliant actually. Difficult to categorize, Dirt Town is somewhere between a crime, a small-town drama, and a literary tour de force. It is a gripping, unsettling read that stayed with me for days after I finished the last page. Set in rural Australia, it has been likened to The Dry by Jane Harper but this falls shy of the mark for me. Dirt Town is less about where it is set and more about a community of people unraveling after the disappearance of school girl, Esther, on her way home from school. The community is rife with lies and secrets, but there’s also an outpouring of love, support, and grief. A startling debut.
— Olivia