WAKE is the debut novel by Shelley Burr.

Mina: twin sister of Evelyn who went missing at age nine,

Lane: private investigator determined to solve Evelyn's case.

Mina has practically become a recluse due to the media circus that has surrounded Evie's disappearance. She has to live with the speculations of others that she or someone else in her family harmed Evie. Mina does not trust Lane. He is just another person stirring up trouble in hopes of getting the reward for finding Evie.

Lane is determined to worm his way into Mina's life and solve the case. He has his own troubling past that may interfere with his investigations.

I enjoyed the characters but wished they were a little more fleshed out. I liked that the book was easy to read right from the start. I was interested throughout on what the outcome would be.

I will be looking for another book by this author.

Thank you to scene of the crime for an arc via netgalley.

➡️ Debut Novel
➡️ Crime Thriller
➡️ Slow Burn
➡️ Character-Driven

⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
A solid debut novel by Shelley Burr. Set in a small Australian outback town, Mina McCreery has lived the passed 19 years in relative isolation, ever since the mysterious disappearance of her twin sister, Evelyn.

Private investigator, Lane Holland, comes to town with an intent to solve the cold case hoping to cash in on the reward money, but he also has a shady past, with a darker motivation than just money.

Great cast of characters that are believable. A slow burn but compulsive read. I enjoyed how the story unfolded and the plot came together. Well written and thought out. While the murky waters started to come clear about half way through the book, I didn't want to put it down. I had to see how it would all end. I'll be looking for more from Shelley Burr.

Thank you to netgalley and the publisher for an opportunity to read and review honestly an advanced digital copy.

Almost 20 years ago, 9 year old Evie disappeared from her outback farm in rural Australia while her mom and twin sister, Mina, slept. Now, private investigator, Lane Holland, is out to solve this infamous cold case and earn the million dollar reward. Will he be able to get Mina to help him with the investigation?
A great debut from author, Shelley Burr. I loved the Australian Outback setting and how the mystery unfolded slowly. Lane and Mina were likable, yet made some questionable decisions due to their past traumas. Releases August 30. Thanks to the publisher and NetGalley for a digital arc of this book.

What happened to Evelyn? Mina, her sister has borne the scorn and stares of Australia ever since her twin vanished from their bedroom when they were nine. Now, years later, Lane, a PI who specializes in finding the missing, has turned her carefully arrayed life upside down. She only leaves the family farm- once an active sheep station- to pick up supplies and to visit her friend Alana, also the sister of a missing girl but Lane pushes in. Lane has lived a tough life caring for his own orphaned sister Lynne but he's got a secret- a big secret that will slowly be revealed. Burr does a great job in creating Mina's claustrophobic world as well as her small town. She's built a shell that Lane picks at because honestly, he wants the $1 million reward for finding her sister. These are intriguing characters, there are good twists, and some real surprises. Thanks to the publisher of the ARC. No spoiler from me because this one is an excellent read that deserves to be experienced without hints.

(The following review will be posted on CriminalElement.com the week of publication.)

I live in that house you’ve seen on the news. We painted it robin’s-egg blue the summer I turned sixteen, but in your mind it’s white. Two little pink bikes lean against the veranda, and one wall glows blue with the reflected light of a police car. They use the same picture every time there’s “news”. It’s not worth the expense to send a photographer out to get a fresh one. Not when they want the two little bikes and that streak of blue.
Nobody wants to see proof that one of those little girls grew up.


For the last nineteen years, Mina McCreery has been known as “Evie McCreery’s sister”. The twin that didn’t disappear. The one who wasn’t taken from their wealthy family’s remote farm on the edge of the Australian Outback.

All her life — even before Evelyn disappeared within weeks of their ninth birthday — Mina has been overshadowed by her prettier, more vivacious, more interesting sister. Frequently compared to the dour character Wednesday Addams, Mina is more than happy to hide from the spotlight of awful fame her family has lived under for almost two decades.

She desperately wants to know what happened to Evelyn, yes; she wants to know where her body is, to finally have closure. But she despises the hungry media vultures, the obsessed and invasive true crime fans, the greedy fortune hunters after the two million dollar reward who hound her for private details. It’s been nearly twenty years, and she’s so sick and tired of the eternal circus spinning around her sister — so when a peculiar young man begins poking around town, she wants nothing more than for him to go away and leave her alone with her grief.


“Who are you?” she asked.
“I’m Lane,” he said, pulling out a wallet. “Lane Holland.” He flipped the wallet open to show her his driver’s license. “I specialize in cold cases.”
“This isn’t a police badge,” she said. She reached out and took the wallet. A flicker of surprise crossed his face. She doubted many people crossed that boundary, but social mores could suck her dick.
The license was real, as far as she could tell. The address was in Byron Bay. If he’d driven all the way from there to talk to her, he was going to be difficult to shake. She tilted it, and found no sign of scratches or discoloration that would show he had doctored the name. The picture had the same light hair, dark eyes, and solid jawline as the man in front of her.
“I’m not with the police,” he said. “I’m a private investigator.”
She tossed the wallet back. “I see. So do you already have a book deal? If you’re planning to shop one around, you’re shit out of luck. There are already two books being pushed out in time for the twentieth anniversary; nobody’s looking to buy a third one.”
“I’m not writing a book,” he said. “I want to lay some ghosts to rest.”
“And what makes you think my ghosts need your help?” she asked.


Lane Holland is dogged and determined; not even Mina’s outright hostility can deter him. He desperately needs that reward money, for starters — with his baby sister Lynnie off at an expensive university, he has to have some way to cover all of her bills. But then there’s also a personal component to this particular case. Lane has a very vested interest in finally solving Evelyn McCreery’s now infamous disappearance. More than any other case he’s investigated, it could be the one that makes all the difference to his own family…

Amidst the dual Holland and McCreery dramas, the story of another missing girl also plays out. Christa Rennold’s case has languished in the shadows cast by Evelyn McCreery. Her sister Alanna is desperate to have answers, and knows she probably would have had them by now if only her family was richer, more photogenic, more interesting: more like the McCreery’s. Instead, nobody cares about Christa, not even on the message boards, and Alanna can’t help but resent friend Mina’s fame.


The reward money, like so many subjects, was a touchy issue. The New South Wales police had put up one of the largest rewards ever for information leading to an arrest and conviction for Evelyn’s disappearance: one million dollars. Mina’s mother had doubled it, offering a further million for any information that led to Evelyn’s recovery. Few families had the resources to pursue justice the way they had. The fact that they hadn’t got it didn’t seem to make a difference.
Mina sighed, grabbing a cushion and hugging it to her chest. She did understand. Alanna’s family couldn’t afford a private investigator, and no one was beating their door down to work for free. Her sister’s case had never got the media attention or ongoing interest that Evelyn attracted. She didn’t have a mother who was poised and camera-ready, or stacks of adorable, high-resolution photos the media could run on the front page. Nobody dissected her case, idly discussing it in the break room or online. If Mina could take her life off like a coat and let Alanna wear it, she would.
But she didn’t think Alanna would like it as much as she claimed.


Wake won the 2019 CWA Debut Dagger award, and for good reason — Burr has delivered a genuinely gripping story about a twenty-year-old cold case. There’s a solid sense of place established from page one, and the remote Outback setting lends itself well to an eerie, tragic tale. With the mystery genre dominated by American and British-set whodunits, this Aussie offering stands out from the crowd and offers something fresh for anyone tired of the usual.

The plot, the characters, and so many of the details of the Evelyn McCreery and Christa Rennold disappearances feel as though they were ripped directly from the headlines, and anyone familiar with true crime will appreciate the visceral realism here, the commentary on the psychological toll such crimes take on the survivors, not to mention the frequent references to other infamous cases.

Part of that realistic authenticity is thanks to Burr’s clever use of chatroom excerpts to pepper in clues and theories. Most of the story is told from either Mina or Lane’s perspective, but many chapters open with message board exchanges.


User Inspektor: Hi everyone, I’m new to this forum and I keep seeing acronyms everywhere. Some I can figure out from context, but can anyone shed some light on these: WAKE, SKE, TIKE?
User Waffletoid: They’re unique to discussion of the Evie McCreery case, although you’ll see the last one used as a joke in other subforums sometimes. WAKE stands for “Wednesday Addams Killed Evie”, which is used to flag that the poster is a crackpot right up front. SKE means “Stranger Killed Evie”. “TIKE” means “The Illuminati Killed Evie”, and is mostly used to make fun of the WAKEs.
User Inspektor: Wednesday Addams?
User LionSong: Wednesday Addams is what some jackholes in this forum call Mina McCreery. The press ran a quote from a friend of the family saying that Beverley, the girls’ mother, called Mina “Wednesday” as a nickname. People have really run with it.


Both of Wake’s protagonists are deeply wounded people with plenty of secrets they keep close to their chests. Watching them slowly connect and reveal their layers provides most of the story’s tension and momentum, and it isn’t long before we’re rooting for them both to find peace (whether they do or not I won’t spoil here).

And while you wouldn’t expect there to be high stakes with a mystery that’s been cold for twenty years, Burr does a great job of throwing in a couple of surprising left turns — I won’t even call them twists; they’re not nearly that gimmicky or cliché — that unseats us as much as the characters. As more facts of that fateful night in 1999 are uncovered, as we discover all of the ways Mina and Lane are connected or parallel each other, everything builds into a solid, satisfying climax with real repercussions for them both.

All in all, Wake may not be incredibly original, but it is one of the best takes on a familiar tale I’ve read in some time. Burr takes a solid framework and builds a darn fine, frequently impressive house around it out of secrets, human evil, and abiding grief and guilt. Never does she expect us to suspend our disbelief for a wild leap, and she respects her audience enough to not give us easy answers or frustrating red herrings. The many mysteries that unfold here are all wonderfully planned out and exactingly revealed. Burr is already a master at crafting a mystery — and I’m already looking forward to her next book.

In Wake, Mina's twin sister goes missing when they are only nine years old, leaving her to deal with the fallout for twenty years. Then along comes Lane, a private investigator, who worms himself into her life with the intent to solve the crime.
I thought I had predicted how this was going to end about 25% into the story but I was only partially correct so I'm glad I continued reading it. The story was a good mystery with an interesting premise. I wasn't attached any of the characters but I was curious as to how it would end so I kept reading. I think the plot was cleverly written. I just wish I felt more connected to the characters.
Thanks to Netgalley, William Morrow, and the Scene of the Crime Early Reads for the advanced copy of the book. The opinions are my own.

Lane Holland, private investigator, has come to the town of Nannine in North South Wales, to see if he can help Mina McCreery in putting closure to the disappearance of her twin sister. Mina wants nothing to do with him or any publicity and has became a recluse on her farm. She does direct him to the local police for information but instead of looking for the sister the police gave him information on another girls disappearance from the same area.
As Lane works on this other case, he tries to wear down Mina's resistance about her sister. He needs the reward money but we start to learn that there is also something in his past that pushes him to find the truth.
A slow examination of the lives that were affected by the disappearances as it moves from the past to the present as revelations and memories are brought to the surface.
Thank you NetGalley and Harper Collins for the ARC e-galley of "Wake".

This story takes place in the small town of Nannine in Australia.

Nearly two decades ago, a nine-year-old twin, Evelyn, was taken from her home within feet of her sleeping sister, Wilhelmina (Mina).

Mina, now 28 years old, is very wary of people. Since her mother's passing and leaving a massive reward for anyone who can locate Evelyn, the McCreery family has always been in the public eye. Mina's only friend is Alanna, whose sister also went missing.

Lane Holland is a PI whose specialty is finding missing children of cold cases.

Alanna is slightly jealous of the attention the public gives to Evelyn's case. So when Mina presents her friend with her run-in with a man who claims to be a PI, Alanna pulls up information on him and discovers he's the real deal. Faced with a catch-22 with Alanna, Mina covertly makes a plan. When her plan yields surprising results, Mina decides to be more forthcoming with Lane.

The reward money is what Lane needs after he became the guardian of his younger sister, but there is an undercurrent all along that the money isn't the sole reason for Lane's interest in the case.

I, actually really enjoyed this story and felt there were several mysteries going on at the same time. There's betrayal, hope, anguish, and secrecy all beneath everyone's persona. This made the characters more real for me since no one was a really good person, they were all distinctly flawed. The ending was bittersweet where, despite the wrong done by Lane, he stepped up in a protective role.

I requested and received an ARC from NetGalley via William Morrow and I have voluntarily reviewed this book.

This is a mystery that twists from beginning to end! The central character of the book is Mina, a young woman whose twin sister disappeared when she was nine. Despite numerous searches, no trace was ever found, despite the fact that the interest in the case has never waned. Mina and her father continue to live on the family farm, and struggle to keep it afloat. Lane, a private investigator, intent on finally solving the mysterious disappearance and collect the reward money, approaches Mina to enlist her help. But Lane has secrets of his own that could influence the search. The story evolves in ways I never anticipated and kept me guessing until the very exciting end! I thoroughly enjoyed the book, the author's style of writing, and the complex, continually evolving plot! I did receive a complimentary copy from the author, publisher, Scene of the Crime, and Netgalley and I am very glad I did!

👨‍🌾 BOOK / REVIEW 👨‍🌾

Ok. So I will be fully transparent - I almost put this down. If there was ever a slow burn #thriller, #wake may just be it 🤪

I am a "dead body on the first page" kinda reader, so when this one took me almost 60% to get invested, I was itching for something to happen. The story was very interesting, but the characters fell a bit short for me. I wanted this to be more graphic, but it was more focused on the vigilante efforts to find what happened to Evelyn. The 2nd half picked up and overall, I was happy with the outcome.

I would give this ⭐️⭐️⭐️🌟 - I enjoyed it for the most part and the ending definitely made me like it more!

WAKE is a slow burn mystery surrounding a missing persons case in the Australian outback. Evelyn McCreery disappeared without a trace when she was nine years old, something her twin sister Mina and her parents have had to live with for years, and that her mom Beverley worked to keep top of mind in the media. When Beverley dies of cancer, Mina is left on the family farm with the unsolved case and the reward associated with it - which brings Lane Holland to her door. Lane has made his living solving missing persons cases, and solving the disappearance of Evelyn could help pay the bills for him and his sister Lynnie, and keep them both out of reach from their father. As the reader learns, Lane's involvement is even more personal than that. His family was in the local community when Mina's sister disappeared and he's hoping to find proof that his father may have been involved, something that becomes even more urgent when he finds out that his father is being released from jail for what he did to Lynnie. The story does a great job of building up the story, providing red herrings, and delving into a side story of another young missing girl in the same area. It also creates an interesting dynamic between Mina and Lane, both want the case solved for their own reasons, and it has an impact on the relationship they have with each other - Mina, leery of Lane's motivations and Lane eager for any new information from Mina and the community that could give him the opening he needs. While the end of the book has a thriller element to it when things come to a head, most of the story reads as a cold case mystery investigation. The setting still provides the isolation to make the story compelling, but provides an appropriate alternative in Australia that's interesting for readers anywhere. This was definitely enjoyable, and I look forward to seeing what Burr comes up with next! A complimentary copy was provided by the publisher. All thoughts and opinions are my own.

I've been a fan of Australian author Jane Harper and her books set in Australia's Outback for years. Her gritty portrayal of the unforgiving land and they type of people that inhabit it has captivated me and made me a fan of Australian fiction. When I was given the opportunity to read a new mystery set in the Outback I jumped at the chance and I'm glad I did.

Mina McCreery has lived in the shadow of her sister's abduction for nineteen years. She has become a recluse who walks a different section of her vast family farm daily looking for possible clues. The cold case has long been the source of discussion on social media and forums; her mother even wrote a book and offered a multi-million dollar reward in hopes of keeping the case alive.

Enter Lane Holland, a private investigator who has had some success with missing person cases. He's broke and would love to crack this case, but first he has to crack the shell that surrounds Mina. As he slowly gains her trust and explores promising lines of inquiry, Mina's hopes for a resolution to her sister's disappearance are once again reignited. Can Lane succeed where so many have failed?

This is a slow-burn mystery that sparingly reveals clues to not only the abduction but to secrets possessed by both Lane and Mina. The reader watches as two very private individuals grow to trust each other and combine knowledge that may lead to the solution of Evelyn McCreery's fate. The characters are well drawn and the desolate setting wonderfully portrayed. If you enjoy a good mystery, I highly recommend this debut novel by a very promising writer.

Thank you NetGalley and William Morrow for the advance copy of this book. The publication date is August 30, 2022.

#Wake by Shelley Burr is a slow burn of a novel. I thought the McCreery family, still reeling (what's left of them anyway) from the disappearance of their daughter, Evie, would be the focus of our story, but it's just as much about the Holland family, whose connection to the McCreerys reveals itself in one incredible way. The setting of Nannine, once a thriving farming community is ("The town had faded back to a few essentials, and it's primary industry now was stubbornness.") desolate and depressing, yet Mina McCreery (Evie's twin) refuses to leave, instead trying to find some solace and lifeblood from the land. Lane Holland, himself reeling from a toxic past, comes to town, hoping to solve the murder of Evie, and win the reward money so he can get his sister through uni and perhaps settle himself. I loved the way Ms. Burr plants little clues along the way, and brings it full circle by the end. And that title? So fabulous!! Highly recommend.

P.S. Thanks to William Morrow's (@WilliamMorrowBooksUS) Scene of the Crime Early Read and #Netgalley for the ARC.

I received an ARC of, Wake, by Shelley Burr. I did not care for this book at all. People are manipulative and only out for themselves, like Lane. I did not care for Lane at all.

I was drawn in by the characters and setting of this novel. The story has plot developments that I didn't expect. It kept me speculating about how it would all turn out.

This book drew me in immediately, with strong resilant characters Mina a recluse, living in the shadow of her twin sisters disappearance and Lane a private investigator with his own stake in the case. It was well written and heart breaking and left me wondering how these two would live with the resolution. What would come of the next ten years. The author doesn't take any easy outs that would have weakened the story.

Shelley Burr weaves a disturbing but addicting tale of a young girl's disappearance in small town Australia.

Thank you William Morrow and NetGalley for this fascinating digital review copy.