I received a free audio copy for review from Netgalley and Macmillian Audio. Here is my honest review. This audio book was fantastic! I really enjoyed mostly everything about it. You follow the case of a missing 12-year-old girl in a small Australian town. Detectives from Sydney come in for the case and you meet many local characters in the process of solving the mystery. It is told through multiple perspectives, including the head detective, the victim's best friend, and an omniscient "we" that provided an interesting point of view; I have never read anything like that. The narration was amazing (although I had some trouble with the accent and Australian English verbiage at times) and it was told in a way that made you feel right there with them. Even the best friend's perspective somehow wasn't too kiddy and cheesy, despite her young age. I loved this book and would absolutely recommend.

I loved this book so much! I absolutely devoured it! The author does a magnificent job of creating a sense of place and feel for these characters. It reminded me of Jane Harper-who I love. I will be recommending this to my family and friends!

This is an impressive first novel by author Hayley Scrivenor. It is a suspenseful, psychological thriller. How sad that a 12-year-old girl is missing from a town where everyone knows your business, but no one remembers seeing her. All small towns have problems. The town of Durton, better known as Dirt Town, is no different. It has its share of drugs and violence but the murder of a child? It doesn't register with the villagers. Only one small boy is willing to come forward with clues to try and find his friend. But it costs him. HIs father is a mean, violent man that despises law enforcement. He forbids his son to talk with them and threatens him with physical violence. Makes you wonder what he is hiding! Sophie Loughran does an excellent job of narrating.
Thank you to NetGalley and Macmillan Audio for this advanced review copy. In return, I am submitting my unbiased and voluntary review. All opinions and thoughts are my own.

Dirt Creek is a “For Want of a Nail” story in the guise of a mystery/thriller plot. “For Want of a Nail” is a proverb that starts out with losing a horseshoe because the protagonist needs a nail to keep the horseshoe on the horse. And it results in the loss of a kingdom because of the chain of events that follows.

Dirt Creek is that kind of book. It begins with a then-unknown person discovering the corpse of a young girl buried in a shallow grave on a remote property outside of the tiny, dying town of Durton not too far outside of Sydney, Australia.

Most of the residents of Durton call it “Dirt Town”, and the creek that runs near town is “Dirt Creek”. (Dirt Town seems to have been the title of the original Australian edition of the book.)

While the book kicks off with the finding of that body, witnessed by a couple of unnamed – at least at that point – children, that event is actually the final nail in the killer’s coffin. The story, the story of how so many things fell apart in Durton, begins the Friday before, when 12-year-old Esther Bianchi doesn’t come home from school. On time. Or at all.

The story, over a long, hot weekend and part of the next week, follows the unfolding events from multiple perspectives. The police detectives who come out from Sydney to investigate Esther’s disappearance, Esther’s mother, Constance. Constance’s best friend Shelly. Esther’s best friend Veronica – who everyone calls Ronnie. And Esther and Veronica’s mutual friend, Lewis, an 11-year-old boy who is being bullied at school and beaten at home.

Everyone in Durton knows everyone else, their friends, their families, their secrets – and their lies. Sooner or later, all the truths are going to bubble to the surface. Nothing ever stays buried for long – not even poor Esther Bianchi.

But by the time Esther’s body is found, the weight of the secrets, both big and small, that are being hidden from both the police and the entire community, have already broken at least one marriage, rescued at least one mother and her children, caused one child to be savagely attacked – and torn an entire town apart.

Because at the very beginning of Esther’s story, two children saw something very suspicious. Something they were much too afraid to tell. And because they didn’t, for want of that telling at a time when it would have done the most good, one event led to another – until all the pieces came together at the quietly chilling end.

Escape Rating B-: This is going to be one of those “mixed-feelings” kinds of reviews. You have been warned.

Before I start on the things that drove me bananas, one thing that most definitely did not was the narrator, Sophie Loughran. I listened to about half the book and read the rest because I was pressed for time. I wish I could have continued with the audio because the reader was excellent and did a terrific job with the Australian and English accents. She made each of the characters sound distinctive, which would have been particularly challenging because all of them, with the exception of 11-year-old Lewis whose voice hasn’t dropped yet, were female. And yet, I always knew who was speaking by accent, by intonation, by vocal patterns. She also did an excellent job of keeping to the slow, deliberate pace of the story, particularly when voicing Detective Sergeant Sarah Michaels who both spoke and thought in a thoughtful, deliberate manner.

Howsomever, Detective Sergeant Michaels’ thoughtful deliberation pointed out an issue that I had with the story. For a thriller, it moves quite slowly. It takes half the book to set itself up – and to set Michaels and her detective partner up in Durton. As a thriller, this needed to move a bit faster. The descriptions of everything and everyone were meticulous to a point close to monotony.

There’s also a lot of foreshadowing. Not necessarily the obvious foreshadowing – because the reader is pretty sure that little Esther is not going to be found alive at the end of this story. The story, and the town it is set in, are both so bleak that there’s just no way to eke a happy ending out of this one.

What gets foreshadowed is the “For Want of a Nail” nature of the story. Every time someone fails to inform someone, anyone, else about an important clue, it gets foreshadowed that this lack of information might have changed things before all of the other terrible things that happened were too far along to prevent.

Those omissions do all turn out to be important, because they send the police on wild goose chases that waste time and personnel – both of which are in short supply. But it’s also a truth that everybody lies, so there’s nothing unexpected or exceptional about people lying to the police. It’s just humans being human.

As many red herrings and half-baked clues and misdirections there were in this story, there was plenty going on and oodles of directions for the case and the reader to follow. There were two elements of the various internal monologue that felt like one-too-many. One was that Detective Sergeant Michaels is keeping a secret from the reader and in some ways from herself about the reasons behind the breakup of her recent relationship. The other was that the children of the town who were not directly involved in the plot had chapters as a kind of Greek chorus. Either element might have been fine, but together they distracted from the progress of the mystery without adding enough to offset the time and attention they took.

So very much a mixed bag. I loved the narration. I liked that the small-town mystery was set in a small town somewhere VERY far away. I thought the mystery plot and the way that the police were stuck chasing their own tails a lot of the time was as fascinating as it was frustrating. I did not figure out whodunnit as far as the child’s death was concerned, while the various villains who were exposed during the course of the investigation did receive their just desserts – which is always the best part of a mystery.

But Durton turned out to be a seriously bleak place, and in the end this was an equally bleak story. I seriously needed to visit my happy place when I left there. I’m probably not the only reader who did.

I listened to the audio version.
This was a decent mystery. The mystery itself and the efforts to solve it were more interesting than the actual resolution. In fact, the whodunnit was a bit of a let down.
The author successfully created atmosphere in this creepy Australian town. There were plenty of creepy characters who could be guilty to keep the reader guessing. Much of the story was narrated by another child, the missing girl's best friend.
I did not appreciate the animal abuse in this novel. It was pointless and vulgar. I do not know why the author included this. The bleakness or the town and strangeness of its inhabitants were communicated before this event.
Thanks to the publisher and NetGalley for an ARC of this audiobook in exchange for an honest review.

Reviewers say this is similar to Jane Harper and Celeste Ng, but any similarities don’t hold up for me. I found this debut fairly well written, but quite dry. I struggled to finish it and felt underwhelmed by the ending. Just not my cup of tea, unfortunately.

A mystery set in a small Australian town, where family and friendship secrets abound, sounded like just the audiobook I needed. Thank you Netgalley and Macmillan audio for my copy.

Dirt Creek, told through multiple points of view, steadily unfolded and began to shed light on this town and its inhabitants . Inhabitants who rarely leave and almost always return if they do. How these come together and contribute (or didn’t) to the disappearance of a local 12 year old girl made for an interesting and ultimately sad read. Let’s just say hope wasn’t something I walked away with after listening to this tale.

However, I was intrigued by Dirt Creek and all the shady goings on in it. The narrator did a fine job with the different characters and kept the story moving along.

Overall, a solid read by an author I will surely be picking up again.

What a great book to listen to! You are right there in Australia with the residents of the small town of Dirt Creek. A wonderful mystery about a young girl gone missing. A shocking ending!

Slow burn mystery that simmers under the hot Australian sun. Much more of a character study than plot driven, and the addition of a Greek chorus of local children seems to be a love it or leave it plot device. Unlike the faster paced crime stories, this one felt real (realistic mystery- is that a thing?) and that it could happen in any small town. Solution to the mystery was a surprise, mainly because it didn't seem right to me.

Audiobook was well narrated but the large cast of characters mixed with jumps in the timeline did make it a bit harder than normal to follow.

Recommended for readers looking for a trip down under, but not something that's going to make them want to purchase airline tickets. Not really right for people who want to be on the edge of their seat.

Dirt Creek by Hayley Scrivenor takes place in a small town in Australia. It revolves mostly around the disappearance of a 12-year-old girl Esther. You get to know how small the town is and the connections that are made as the search for Ester. You get to know her best friend Veronica ( Ronnie ) and another friend of their's Lewis. It takes through the investigation the police went through the process of all the suspects and then eliminated them one by one. I loved the mystery part of this book you will never guess what happened or who did it. I know it caught me off guard.
I am giving this book 4 stars because I enjoyed the main plot, but there were a few plots in the story I don't think were necessary to go into detail that it went.
Thank you Flatiron books for the gifted audiobook.
Published Aug 2nd 2022

I enjoyed this audiobook. It was a little slower for me than thrillers I typically read. I'd say it's medium paced. I didn't listen to it for a week straight while on vacation, but easily picked it right back up when I returned. This one kept me guessing because I was convinced I knew who the murder was, but I was wrong.

A slow-build, emotional mystery, Dirt Creek is the story of two friends, a small community, and tragedy. When Esther goes missing on her way home from school, her friend Ronnie has a hard time grasping that she is really gone. When another school boy says he thought he saw her by the river speaking to a man, Ronnie is hopeful that her friend will return. A shocking ending will leave readers thinking about this book days after it has been read. I would recommend Dirt Creek!
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Thank you to the author, Macmillan Audio, and NetGalley for a copy of this audiobook in exchange for an honest review. #DirtCreek #NetGalley

Small town mystery? Sign me up.

We are taking to the small of Dutton, also known locally as Dirt Town. As in most small towns, everyone knows each other's business. Or so they think! But when a young girl goes missing and secrets everyone is keeping bubble to the surface, everyone wonders who they really know at all!

From the beginning we know Esther didn't make it when the first chapter has us finding her buried.
But we don't know the who or the why. DS Sarah Michaels, not without her own secrets, is sent to solve the crime.

Definitely a slow burn, but you will feel you are a part of this small town and are learning the secrets right along with everyone else!

Many thanks to NetGalley and Macmillan Audio for an advanced audio copy in exchange for my honest review.

A young girl has gone missing from a small Australian town and we watch the crime investigation through childrens and police voices.

A creative way to tell a story, but for me this was just so slow. I’m not sure why. I felt it was well done as far as the writing goes but it was confusing at times and had a drag for me that I couldn’t snap out of. That said it kept me guessing until the end!

Thank you to Macmillan Audio audio and NetGalley for the advance audiobook.

3.5⭐
A slow-burn mystery revolving around the disappearance of twelve year old Esther. Suspicions fly and secrets are about to be laid wide open. This town will never be the same.

I was lulled into the mystery of Esther. So many questions that needed answering - what happened on her walk home from school? How could she just vanish? Was there something or someone more sinister behind her sudden disappearance?

Overall I enjoyed, but I struggled somewhat keeping the characters straight. Perhaps more depth to each was needed. (Or maybe it was just me).🤦🏻‍♀️
The mystery kept me guessing. And the ending did not let me down. It was truly surprising!

I listened to the audio and the voice talent of Sophie Loughran was fabulous.

A buddy 🎧 with Susanne.

Thank you to NetGalley and Macmillan Audio

I really enjoyed this mystery about the disappearance of a girl from a small town, Durton, nicknamed 'Dirt Creek', in Australia. After Esther goes missing, the investigation sheds light on a lot of dark secrets the town would want to forget. It's definitely a slow burn, and builds as it shifts perspectives, slowly adding clues until the climax where all is revealed.

Thank you Macmillan audio and netgalley for giving me an advanced review copy of this audiobook in exchange for an honest review.

This one kept me intrigued from the very beginning.

I like how there were so many villains in the town that you couldn't quite tell how many crimes had taken place and how or if they were connected.

It reminded me how small towns feel almost incestuous with everyone dating the same people (as a small town girl who married someone from high school, that hit close to home.) Everything is muddied when you know everyone's past.

#DirtCreek #HayleyScrivenor #MacmillanAudio #NetGalley #FlatironBooks
This is the story of a schoolgirl Esther, who goes missing on her way back home.
Detective Sergeant Sarah Michaels investigates the disappearance. Ronnie, Esther’s best friend tries to find her friend and bring her back safely. Lewis, another friend, also has some information relating to the disappearance and a secret to hide.
The story is evocative of sweltering heat and dust, childhood hopes, dreams & fears along with adult motivations & hustles, playing out over the course of those eventful days.
The tangled web in this small Australian town is unraveled, bit by bit, as the truth is eventually laid bare.

This is a review of an advanced copy of the audiobook.

When 12 yr old Esther goes missing one day after school a rural Australian town is upended and the investigation brings to light secrets and small town struggles that most would prefer to keep quiet.

The comparison to Jane Harper's writing style held true. I was never bored but it is definitely more of a slow burn literary mystery. The story is told from multiple POVs over the course of the investigation: Ronnie (Esther's best friend), Constance (Esther's mom), Sarah (investigator), Lewis (friend of Ronnie and Esther), collective "We" (remaining children of Durton). I thought it all come together nicely.

I did enjoy the narration but there wasn't a ton of distinction in the voices of the characters (which there were a ton of) so when perspectives shifted it sometimes took me a second to acclimate.

Rating: 3.5 stars

Special thanks to @netgalley and @macmillan.audio for the ALC of Dirt Creek for review purposes.

WOAH - normally I am pretty good at figuring out the 'who done' it early on, but this one I didn't see coming. Esther disappears on the way home from school, and it turns this small town on its toes with suspensions and grief. The residents think they know everything about everyone…but they are clearly mistaken. It had me hooked until the end.