EXCERPT: Chandler could almost see Gabriel's heart pound under his tee-shirt. The memories were flooding back, intense and uncontrolled. After a long breath that seemed to suck the last of the oxygen from the stifling room, he continued.

'I aimed for the ridge. I glanced back and he was about ten metres behind me. I kept running and running until I stumbled on some loose soil and fell into a small clearing. The ground was all, dug up.' Gabriel stared at him. 'They were graves.'

ABOUT THIS BOOK: Wilbrook in Western Australia is a sleepy, remote town that sits on the edge of miles and miles of unexplored wilderness. It is home to Police Sergeant Chandler Jenkins, who is proud to run the town's small police station, a place used to dealing with domestic disputes and noise complaints.

All that changes on a scorching day when an injured man stumbles into Chandler's station. He's covered in dried blood. His name is Gabriel. He tells Chandler what he remembers.

He was drugged and driven to a cabin in the mountains and tied up in iron chains. The man who took him was called Heath. Heath told Gabriel he was going to be number 55. His 55th victim.

Heath is a serial killer.

As a manhunt is launched, a man who says he is Heath walks into the same station. He tells Chandler he was taken by a man named Gabriel. Gabriel told Heath he was going to be victim 55.

Gabriel is the serial killer.

Two suspects. Two identical stories. Which one is the truth?

MY THOUGHTS: Gabriel? Heath? Gabriel? Heath? Gabriel and Heath? My mind was rather like a tumble dryer while I read this intense debut novel set in the outback of Western Australia.

Then there is the back story of Chandler and Mitchell cleverly interwoven, childhood friends, adult rivals - in more ways than one. Their rivalry puts more than the investigation in danger.

There is a lot going on in this book. But it is clearly written. And cleverly written. The tension is indescribable. The ending debatable.

'What?!' I yelled. 'That can't be the end. There's got to be more pages.' But there wasn't. I kept thumbing the page turner on my Kindle, glaring at the 100% at the bottom of the page. I threw my arms in the air and stomped around the house. It changed nothing. There was no more.

But I hope there will be.

😍🤔🤨🤯.5

THE AUTHOR: James Delargy was born and raised in Ireland but lived in South Africa, Australia and Scotland, before ending up in semi-rural England where he now lives.

DISCLOSURE: Thank you to Simon and Schuster (Australia) via Netgalley for providing a digital ARC of 55 by James Delargy for review. All opinions expressed in this review are entirely my own personal opinions.

For an explanation of my rating system, please refer to my Goodreads.com profile page or the about page on sandysbookaday.wordpress.com

This review and others are also published on Twitter, Amazon and my webpage https://sandysbookaday.wordpress.com/...

3.5 rounded to 4!

In the small, isolated Outback town of Gardner's Hill, Western Australia, a distraught man named Gabriel stumbles into the police station. He claims to have been held prisoner by a serial killer called Heath, who intended him to be victim no 55. Later that day, another man turns up with the exact same story, stating his name as Heath, but is adamant Gabriel is the killer, not him. Which man is lying? It's up to Senior Sergeant Chandler Jenkins to figure out which of the two is a threat to the people in his town.

A steady-paced, engrossing thriller, with a gripping unique premise. It was well written, twisty, with creepy, religious undertones. The remote, lonely location served as a scary reminder that so much of the Australian Outback is unpopulated, and unliveable – the perfect, private hunting ground for a serial killer to hide.

Aside from the prologue, events unfold entirely from Chandlers POV in the third person. Mostly takes place in the present with occasional flashbacks to 10 years previously. It is very much a male dominated book, with few female characters, and the ones that there are aren't well developed. Chandler is a likeable character, but not the brightest tool in the shed, and also somewhat spineless at sticking up for himself. The rivalry between Chandler and visiting Inspector, Mitch Adams, did become tiresome, but for the plot to go in the direction it did became hugely important, so keep that in mind if you find their arguments getting on your nerves.

The ending saw me screaming in frustration, and I'm equally divided between it being clever versus just plain annoying. I'm hopeful it's foreshadowing for a sequel but could just as easily be deliberately open ended and left to your own interpretation. Put it this way, I think readers are going to either love it or hate it – nothing in between.

A movie is in the works, and I think it has a lot of potential if done right, and I'm curious to see whether they keep or change the ending? Recommend to my fellow thriller readers who enjoy small town Australian noir. Would I read another book by James Delargy – definitely! – particularly if it's a sequel to this one.

I'd like to thank Netgalley, Simon & Schuster (Australia), and James Delargy for the e-ARC. 55 is available now!

I thoroughly enjoyed this story. There were two stories running, the past and the present. A fairly isolated town in WA has two people both claiming to be the victims of each other. This was a fast moving police procedural, while reflecting on a similar search early in the policeman's career. But things are not as they appear. Hang in there for an ending I am still shaking my head!

Gotta say, I'm glad I didn't buy this one. I would have been even more disappointed.
I loved the premise of this book, two men claiming to be the victim of a serial killer and blaming the other for the crime. There was so much potential in the idea of this novel. But that's where my love for this book ended.

I saw it advertised as a cross between Wolf Creek and The Dry (two of my favourite things!), but this, kind sir, is neither.

I had problems with the characters (Chandler & Mitch feuding? Yawn). I had problems with the dialogue, that often didn't sound realistic to me. I had problems with the writing. I felt like I was being told a story, not immersed in it.

With that being said though, this book has plenty of 4 and 5 star reviews. So it could just be a case of it's not you, book, it's me. So you should read it anyway, if you feel like it, because you might love it.

Sergeant Chandler Jenkins was in charge of the small police station in Wilbrook, Western Australia. One morning, a bedraggled and bloodied individual who said his name was Gabriel, entered the station, telling of the horror of being abducted, beaten and threatened with murder; that he would be victim number 55. He said the person who did this, way out in the bush, called himself Heath. But it wasn’t much later that another individual, in the same shattered state, entered the station, gave his name as Heath and said Gabriel had abducted him, telling him he would be number 55.

Much against Chandler’s wishes, the big guns from Port Hedland were brought in, and his nemesis, the now Inspector Mitchell Andrews put himself in charge. Determined to find the answers to who the serial killer was; who the two men were; and receive accolades for his cleverness, Andrews quickly turned people against him. Chandler, relegated to lower duties, put his time in trying to work out who was who and why the events were happening. What would be the outcome in this baffling case?

With a terrible ending – shocking, horrible, completely unexpected – and a lot of macho posturing from Mitch amid his ongoing feud with Chandler, this debut novel was less than perfect in my opinion. The tension is gripping; breathtaking, but rather spoiled by Mitch and his determination to better Chandler. Author James Delargy’s novel, 55, has divided people into two different groups, going on the ratings so far, and I’m afraid I’m in the lower rating category. The formatting left a lot to be desired as well.

With thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for my digital ARC to read in exchange for an honest review.

From the opening pages of his first novel, 55, Irish-born author, James Delargy creates instant intrigue when two men, clearly in fear of their lives, enter a remote Western Australian town in short succession claiming to have barely escaped a serial killer. The details of their ordeals are virtually identical, except that each names the other as the killer, and themselves as number 55.

With his staff of four, Wilbrook’s Sergeant Chandler Jenkins is ill-equipped to mount a search when one of the men disappears, and finds his town overrun by the expensively-besuited Inspector Mitchell Andrews and his slick-looking team of ten. Mitch and Chandler started out in the force together, but ten years earlier, their paths diverged.

Delargy’s protagonist is a young cop with integrity whose focus on the case is blurred by the uncomfortable history he has with Mitch. Chandler chose family life while ambitious Mitch chose a career; now, though, Chandler finds that what he does have is under threat. While Chandler is a believable character (although his self-pity and resentment wears a little thin), Mitch seems exaggerated to almost a stereotype. The minor characters show a little depth but don’t really get a chance to shine.

A secondary narrative details the search, ten years earlier, for a missing bush walker that highlighted how very different Chandler and Mitch were, both as policemen and as people, a difference that seems, if anything, to have amplified over the intervening years.

Delargy’s descriptive prose easily conveys the Pilbara: the dry, searing heat, the desiccated landscape, the vastness, the challenge of distance, and the isolation. Well-articulated, too, are the small-town attitudes, with some sense of, community but also gossip, nosiness, and the disconnection from the city. The resultant boredom evidenced by the younger police officers’ hunger for some excitement.

Delargy certainly keeps his reader guessing about what really happened and whether either of the two are telling the truth as he sprinkles clues and red herrings throughout the story, inserting twists and turns right up to a dramatic climax and the shocking conclusion. A crime thriller that starts with great promise but doesn’t quite deliver.
This unbiased review is from an uncorrected proof copy provided by NetGalley and Simon and Schuster Australia.

This book started so well with two men in police custody, each one claiming to be the victim of the other. Who to believe and how to discover the truth?

What a great premise which led to an interesting and intriguing story. The Australian setting was well done but I thought the characters needed more work. Most of them had a name but no background and the two main players who did have a lot of background, Chandler and Mitch, became rather tedious with their overdramatised feud.

Still a good, readable story until the last page. That was one of the worst endings ever. I am afraid my disappointment in that has affected both my rating and my review.

Wow, this is one book that will get a grip on you and wont let go! Two suspects, each with the same story, blaming the other. A possible 54 bodies somewhere. Small town cop Chandler has no choice but to call in the bigwigs, including his estranged former best friend Mitch.

Mitch and his crew come in and take over, but Mitch is an arrogant moron, I have no idea how he got to such a high ranking, and the whole thing goes belly up. With a police force divided, and a serial killer on the loose, this makes for an action-packed explosive story. As we race towards the stunning conclusion we have to ask ourselves, could this really happen?

This is a wonderful debut, James Delargy tells a tale so astonishing it comes alive on the page. The harsh outback setting adds to the atmosphere, the flawed, and the irritating, characters all giving voice to a marvellous story. I dare you to put this book down! Recommended for crime lovers everywhere.

4.5 stars rounded up.

My thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for an ARC in exchange for an honest review.

3.5★ for this thrilling debut novel by Irish-born author James Delargy.

A terrified young man named Gabriel arrives at the police station in a small, remote Pilbara town, with a tale of escaping a serial-killer, Heath, who had told him he was going to be number 55. Barely had the police managed to plan their approach to locating Heath, when the man himself is brought into the station, blustering at gun-point, explaining his attempt to take the gun-wielder's vehicle was to escape from Gabriel, a serial-killer who had told him he was going to be victim number 55.

The details of both men's stories are virtually identical, but which one is telling the truth?

This is a book of thirds. With this killer opening, and a completely mind-blowing, stunning end, the first and last thirds of the book are deserving of all the hype this book is getting. However, I felt it dragged somewhat in the middle. If that had been a bit tighter - perhaps without so much of the chest-beating between cardboard cutout Inspector Mitch Andrews and his former childhood friend (and hero of this story) Sergeant Chandler Jenkins - I would have rated it higher. At around 400 pages, it could afford to have lost a few.

For the story alone, this is probably 4 or even 4.5★, but I had some other problems with it too. My digital ARC had a number of irritating editing issues (chiefly apostrophe mis-use and word order mistakes), but I tried to overlook those as much as possible, expecting they would be corrected prior to publication. What kept tripping me up though, was some glaring language errors. Apparently the author has spent some time living in Australia, and full credit to him for setting his novel in remote WA, but the myriad references to 'State' as a separate policing entity (i.e. distinct from the local police unit) really grated. As did constant references to the 'woods' of the Pilbara (come on, if anything they are forests or just the bush), not to mention the 'farms' in the area (stations!!...cattle stations or sheep stations). For me it marked the author as an outsider - more than just an author trying to write for an international audience - and caused me to rate it a little lower on authenticity.

Still, it was a good read.

Whoa! This was one high tension read. I don't think my heartbeat returned to normal the whole way through. And that ending - Mr Delargy!!!

This is a very clever debut novel with two young men, beaten and bloodied, first one and then the other walking in to a police station claiming to be backpackers with an alarming story of abduction by a man who told them they were going to be killed as his victim number 55. Both tell identical stories of being locked and shackled in a small hut followed by a terrifying escape through the harsh and rugged bush surrounding the small outback town in northern Western Australia. The local Sergent, Chandler Jenkins doesn't know who to believe. Either one of them is guilty or they're both working together to abduct and kill lone backpackers. Chandler has no choice but to call the regional commander, specifically Inspector Mitchell Andrews, with whom he has past history. Once colleagues starting out together in the force, Mitch felt he was made for higher command and forced his way to the top, growing in arrogance and self-importance as he went.

Delargy keeps us guessing most of the way through this novel as to how this will all end. As well as the conflict between the two suspects both claiming their innocence, there is tension between Chandler and Mitch as Mitch walks in and takes over his station and sneeringly orders his staff around. Flashbacks to their early days in the local force when they were both on an extended search for a missing man, highlights their different natures and approaches to policing. It is Chandler who will eventually through good police work discover the identity and motives of the killer, but not before the tension builds to a pressure that is about to explode. A well written debut novel, with well depicted characters and a well paced intense plot. Definitely a new writer to look out for in the future!

I cannot believe that you ended it there James Delargy!! What the!!!! I was not expecting that at all. This book, a debut from this author was fantastic. This year I am reading more and new Australian writers and I am so glad that I picked this one up.. if you are. a fan of thrillers and police procedurals then you need to get your hand story on it too. The story was clever and different and so well written. Set in outback Western Australia the writer makes you feel like you are there. I heard that this has been picked up for a movie, and I am looking forward to watching it.

Wilbrook is a quiet, remote little town in outback Western Australia. Nothing much happens there. That is until the day that Gabriel stumbles into Chandlers little police station. He is injured and bleeding. He claims that he was drugged and kidnapped by a man called Heath. Everything is thrown at tfinding Heath.. And then he walks into the very same police station claiming that Gabriel drugged and kidnapped him. Both men claim that the other tried to kill them and that they were to be victim Numberr 55. Doe she that have your attention? It certainly got mine!! The story jumps between now and back 10 years with a another case that Chandler was involved with his partner Mitchell. His old partner is no longer a fan f he and is called in to help in this serial killer case... making for a lot of tension and one up manship.

Thanks to Simon and Schuster Australia and NetGalley for my advanced copy of this book to read. All opinions are my own and are no way.

‘He wanted me to be number fifty-five.’

Police Sergeant Chandler Jenkins is in charge of the small police station at Wilbrook, a remote town in Western Australia. It’s a quiet town. Then on a scorching hot day, a man covered in dry blood stumbles in. He tells Chandler that his name is Gabriel, and that he has escaped from a man named Heath who intended to kill him. Gabriel claims that he was drugged, taken to a cabin and tied up in chains. And before he escaped, Heath told him that he would be victim 55. Heath is a serial killer.

Sergeant Jenkins locates Heath quite quickly: he was trying to steal a car. But Heath claims that Gabriel abducted him: he was the victim. Who is telling the truth? Which one of them is a killer? And where are the 54 victims buried?

‘There were flaws in each story. Too many flaws.’

The case is soon taken out of Jenkins’s hands, with the arrival of Inspector Mitchell Andrews and his team. Jenkins and Andrews were once friends: they trained together as policemen. But there’s a tension between them now, heightened by both history and current events. Part of that history is dealt with through a second storyline which deals with their involvement in the search for a young man who went missing in 2002.
The shifts between the search in 2002 and the present case help to both explain the tension between Andrews and Jenkins and highlight the differences between them. And then the case becomes very personal.

‘No killer introduces themselves.’

While much of the middle of the story is necessary because it builds towards the end, it slowed the story down at a time when I really wanted it to speed up. There were a couple of times when I was surprised by how both Jenkins and Andrews handled some situations. I raised my eyebrows and kept reading. Then, just when I thought I understood what had happened (and why) and was looking for a neat resolution … it ended.

Not fair, Mr Delargy. Still, you’ve guaranteed that I won’t forget the ending.

This is an accomplished debut novel, and I hope there are more to come.

Note: My thanks to NetGalley and Simon & Schuster (Australia) for providing me with a free electronic copy of this book for review purposes.

Jennifer Cameron-Smith

Outback Australian crime novels are most definitely the new black at the moment, and the premise for James Delargy’s 55 is a little different to most.

Two guys, same story, one is the perp and one is the victim. Only with practically identical stories, it’s impossible to tell who’s lying and who’s telling the truth.

One wicked set up right?! But, the thing is, the further into this book I got, the more I thought that I’ve come across this story before. Don’t get me wrong, some of it was very unique, but other parts - the cliche of a divorced cop father, fighting his ex-wife for child custody, an a*hole for a boss, the presumption that country police are slow and inept, thick dry heat of Australian bush and the quiet and slow death of a small country town, they’ve been done.

The narrative style bugged me, we only ever got Chandler’s side of the story, and nothing about the actions and activities of the other characters, even though it is written in the third person. This left the other characters underdone, and lacking in any real depth. It is my opinion that first person would have worked better.

Since we are on the narrative, the writing also bugged me. It was flat, emotionless, overwritten and full of unnecessary analogies that did nothing for the story, eg “stomach bulging over his trousers like an overheated pot of mishapen pasta”
First part of the sentence is fine, the second part...huh?

Okay, let’s do some positives. The story itself was pretty wicked, in both the traditional and colloquial sense of the word. And disturbing, in more ways than one, and don’t even with that ending! But unfortunately, there was too much tell and not enough show.

Thank you to James Delargy, Simon & Schuster Australia and NetGalley for the opportunity to read an arc of this book in exchange for an honest review.