It’s been a long time since I’ve read a Candice Fox that’s set in Australia and boy did this one deliver!!

I was a little unsure at first when I saw this one come up, not because it didn’t sound good or anything, on the contrary, it sounded amazing! But I have found that my enjoyment of Fox’s books can be a little hit and miss. Over the last few that I’ve read, I’ve loved every second book. And despaired at not gelling with the ones in between. This inconsistency made me cautious, however, it turns out that I needn’t have worried.

High Wire is every bit as taught, fast-paced, and thrilling as her other books that I’ve loved. The reader is dropped into the action from the very first page and it does not let up until the last one.

Following two separate storylines, an ex-army guy rushing to see an unwell friend and a cop stationed to a massive outback area, we learn about a notorious track used by criminals and nefarious types. People who wish to travel without being seen or detected. People who wish to dump something, or someone, without being seen or detected.

As the storylines weave and drift in and out of each other’s orbit, that by the time they finally join up, the tension is so thick, I’m not sure a knife would’ve cut through it.

And then there’s explosive climax and Oh. My. God!

High Wire has Fox’s usual brilliant writing, flawed heroes and complex villains, but this one has something different. I couldn’t identify it if a bomb best was strapped to me, but it’s there, and it’s incredible. And I’m so excited to have gotten to read two amazing consecutive Candice Fox books in the same year.

Thank you to Candice Fox, Penguin Random House Australia, and NetGalley for an arc of this book.

I enjoyed the cat and mouse type style of High Wire. Harvey Buck and Clare Holland have been abducted and are travelling across the high wire and made to do unthinkable things. Meanwhile Senior Sergeant Edna Norris is trying to track them down, though she is in the dark about what is really going on - they think Harvey has kidnapped Clare. She ends up being accompanied by a teen, who is down on his luck, but keen to be invovled in Edna's work.

The book is packed with suspense and mystery, with flashbacks into both Harvey and Edna’s pasts that help explain their motivations and actions. It’s a gripping race across the outback, with plenty of twists and turns. I couldn’t put it down.

Set in the wilds of central Australia a woman flees her abusive cop husband and a Afghanistan veteran tries to avert disaster as victim of a sinister revenge plot. Unorthodox police officer Sergeant Edna Norris is on the case with affection and tenacity. Candice Fox’s plots are pacy and thrilling as this book is no different. There are also interesting insights about the perception of justice and its more authentic version. I love Sergeant Edna Norris and hope this is the start of a series. Thanks so much Netgalley for the advance copy.

Fast paced, mysterious action thriller - enjoyed the story, didn't enjoy so much waiting to find out for so long why people were doing what they were doing but it helped with the suspense. I love how Candice Fox writes and the how we picture the scenery, especially in an outback Aussie novel. Would recommend!

Thanks to the author, netgalley and publisher for my eARC in exchange for my honest review.

What an adrenaline ride!

The High Wire is a track you take if you are desperate or up to no good. Harvey Buck is travelling on this road and thinks he is being a good civilian and stopping to assist a woman whose car has caught fire. Standing in the shadows is Clare. Harvey on his way to see his dying girlfriend picks up Clare but this is when the terror starts. An ambush and the two of them are taken by the motley crew that will do anything to get execute revenge.

Not for the faint hearted. High Wire will keep you up all night to turn the pages. The ending didn't go the way I predicted and I am of course still shocked. This one will sit with me for awhile. Round of applause for another amazing Candice Fox book. Now I want to read Devils Kitchen ASAP.

A massive thank you to Penguin Australia and Netgalley for sending me a gifted copy of this book for my honest book review.

The High Wire is an unmarked track that travels through outback Australia. It’s travelled by bad people, has become a dumping ground for bodies, and nefarious deeds. This is the route that Harvey Buck takes when he learns his girlfriend in Sydney is dying. On this road he meets Clare Holland who has been unlucky enough to break down. He offers her a lift and the worst trip of their lives is about to begin. Not much further down the road they are ambushed and taken hostage…..not before Harvey kills one of the men. The couple are fitted with bomb vests and made to do some pretty hair raising things including murder or risk being blown up themselves.
Edna Norris (senior sergeant) is dealing with a runaway teen, Talon, who has been catfished by an older man posing as a young girl. Talon ends up as her sidekick of sorts as she tries to organise a flight home for him and his eye for detail and logic actually make him an asset to her although she is constantly telling him he’ll be on a plane home any day now. Harvey and Clare soon come to Edna’s attention especially as Clares husband is Garreth Holland, Commissioner of Police. Now they are following the clues as to what has happened to Clare and who is Harvey Buck.
One of the things I liked about the story is that Edna and Talon didn’t immediately know what was happening which happens a lot in novels and tv shows. Instead they run through different scenarios and try to reason why the two are together, did Harvey kidnap Clare? Why is he doing all these bad things, is Clare in danger.
It’s a real action packed story with a high body count. Great characters and the arid dry setting with isolated towns and properties lends to the bleakness of the quest of the two captives, along with Harvey and Edna’s backstories, the tension mounts page by page. Highly recommend….especially if you love Jack Reacher!

#HighWire. #NetGalley

The High Wire is a secret unmarked, red dust backroad from Sydney to Broome across the middle of Australia, known only to the few who use it for illicit means such as drug running or body dumping. Pretty much a lawless area with little traffic and patchy mobile coverage, it’s not somewhere an innocent tourist would want to find themselves stranded.

Harvey Buck is a man in a hurry. He needs to get to Sydney from Alice Springs because he received a phone call from his ex-girlfriend to say she is dying. He still loves her but can’t be with her after what happened to him while they served together in Afghanistan. He was going to fly but the airport was closed due a bomb threat, so his only option for getting there fast is via the High Wire.

Despite his rush, when he sees a woman, Clare Holland, standing by her burnt out car Harvey feels compelled to stop and offer her a lift for her own safety. Little does she know she would have been a lot safer staying out in the desert.

Also, out on the High Wire are three old army mates looking for revenge and planning an ambush. Harvey and Clare will soon find themselves in their sights and in for a whole lot of trouble. But others are also on the High Wire that day looking for Clare. Her husband is hot on her trail, with his own reasons for wanting to find her before anyone else.

Senior Sergeant Edna Norris, the only police officer in an area over 200,000 square kilometres was on her way to Clifton Hills police station via the High Wire with a runaway teenager called Talon, when she also comes across Clare’s burnt-out car and signs that someone else has stopped for her. Her day is about to get even busier when a bank robbery in a tiny town is called in. What she doesn’t know is that the local crime wave is just getting started.

Candice Fox has written a fast-paced, rip-roaring outback thriller. It’s wild and crazy but all comes together in a fiendish hate fuelled plot that not everyone will survive. Harvey and Edna are excellent characters, both strong, resourceful and quick thinking. Harvey is a tough ex-soldier with a soft-hearted centre and Edna a seasoned outback cop with a chequered past and a quirky sense of humour that shows through in her conversations with Talon. They’ll both need all the tricks they have up their sleeves to get through this nightmare of a day.

The tension is high from the outset and never lets up in this gripping, clever, rollercoaster of a novel. There is bloodshed and collateral damage along the way, peppered with plenty of action, twists and mayhem, so be prepared to hang on tight to the edge of your seat once you start reading.

I am struggling to write this review, as I have seen nothing but rave reviews about this book, but I just didn’t like it and I’m here to write honest reviews, so that’s what your gonna get..

You have The Wire, which is an unmarked track through Australia, where all manner of crimes and dodgy going ons occur, but it never felt sinister enough for me and lacked in atmosphere.

Going into this, I was expecting to be on the edge of my seat and for things to feel intense, but that never came.

There wasn’t a single character that I truly connected with and the dynamics of Edna/Talk and Harvey/Clare did mesh well in my opinion.

There is so much death through this story, but each one felt very glossed over and insignificant and like, “oop, their dead, let’s move on”, especially the female death from a bomb, I wanted more detail and to be left with more of an impact.

I also never found there was any real twist or reveal, a character would think something and then it would just happen, so there was never a wow moment.

This was my first Candice Fox book and I’m not going to let this stop me from reading more of her work - at the end of the book was a Synopsis and a couple of chapters for her book Devil’s Kitchen and I would really like to give this a read.

I received this Ebook ARC from Penguin, via NetGalley, in exchange for an honest review and I am so appreciative.

I am a huge fan of anything that Candice Fox writes, she manages to create extraordinary tension, suspense and interest whilst at the same time including compassion and empathy in just the right spots.. High Wire (her latest) is no exception. The whole concept of a unmarked dirt track through Central Australia to Sydney that only those in a rush to avoid main roads and with the wrong motives would use is genius. It signals her welcome return to Australia as her setting. Put simply, she knows her country so well. The emptiness and the red dust are all encompassing.. Harvey Buck is the kind of complex character Candice Fox does so well, the impact of Afghanistan lingers over him and indeed drives the plot with a heavy dose of PTSD. Edna as a mature policewoman is another gift of a character. Always caring, putting everyone else first. I loved her. And as for Talon, he is just like every smart street kid you’ve ever known. The plot is a complete page turner and the end is a stroke of brilliance. Many thanks to @netgalley and the publisher @penguinaustralia for the opportunity to review this book. I couldn’t put it down.

4.5★
“A set-up with a burning car was just the right kind of bullsh*t for the High Wire.”

The High Wire is a bush track – not always exactly the same track – that cuts across from Sydney all the way to Broome on the west coast of Australia. Truckies, drugrunners, anyone lying low uses it to escape notice.

“The track became party central for drug traffickers trying to move cargo from the south-east corner of Australia to the north-west. And for the bandits who wanted to take advantage of that. Bandits who liked to set cars on fire, draw people in, rob and murder them.”

It’s a secret that’s not really a secret so much as a difficult and dangerous place to police. It is hard enough to cover an outback region from a one-cop-shop that’s responsible for ‘settled’ areas with stations and farms and small towns, some that are just wide spots in the road.

“Overall, Edna and Stevenson [another female cop], along with Indigenous leaders in the communities that dotted their jurisdiction, enforced law in a land area almost as large as New Zealand.”

The book opens with Harvey Buck driving on the High Wire in a hurry to get to Sydney after receiving a frantic phone call that Shayna is dying. When he sees a car on fire a long way in the distance, he stops before getting closer. It could be a trap – of course it could. It could also be a genuine traveller in trouble, in which case he doesn’t want to leave anyone stranded.

He moves ahead – it’s a woman. She’s horrified at her car that has “overheated” (I’ll say!) but she seems almost as wary of Harvey. He refuses to leave her there and gives her a lift, which is when they begin running into trouble together.

“This was bad. Very, very bad. Because whoever these guys were, they had either law enforcement or military training. The style of takedown was telling Harvey that. Everything about it, from the road spikes to the warning shots to the ‘big-dog’ voice the guy was using, the one they taught in the academy, the one from the gut.”

This is a complicated story, Harvey’s, hers, Senior Sgt Edna Norris’s (and the sidekick she acquires), and the soldiers from Harvey’s past. I wouldn’t even try to summarise it, other than to say the action is as red-hot as the car fire, and the tension is appallingly taut.

Not only is someone on the hunt for Harvey, it seems his new lady friend, Clare, is running away from home as well, and there’s no way her husband won’t be tracking her with helicopters and whatever else he can think of. He’d rather shoot her than let her get away.

Suicide vests are also involved (remember the soldiers?), and people die everywhere in some pretty awful circumstances. This is not one for the faint-hearted, but somehow, Fox just keeps me reading. She may not make things simple, but she does wrap it all up well.

I didn’t “like” most of the people (which makes it easier if Fox decides to eliminate someone), but I was fond of the two cops and the young man, Talon, who was supposed to be in custody to be sent home. It’s just that Senior Sgt Norris has so much ground to cover that she has no time to take him to an airport, so he travels with her and absolutely loves being an amateur detective. Turns out he’s not bad at it.

I’m sure I’m not alone in saying it would be fun to see them again sometime.

Thanks to #NetGalley and Penguin Random House for a copy of #HighWire for review.

EXCERPT: A set-up with a burning car was just the right kind of bullshit for the High Wire. The secret track that cut through the Australian Outback from Broome to Sydney had started out as a trucker-only thing; a flat, even, mostly hazard-free route that skirted Indigenous conservation areas, cattle farms and small towns. It was far enough into the dusty forgotten corners of the states that joined hands across it that each jurisdiction liked to think that any problems on the Wire weren't theirs. Satellite coverage was patchy and routine patrols weren't feasible, so after the truckers let slip about it, the track became party central for drug traffickers trying to move cargo from the south-east corner of Australia to the north-west. And for the bandits who wanted to take advantage of that. Bandits who liked to set cars on fire, draw people in, rob and murder them.
Harvey had two choices now.
Drive on.
Or turn away.

ABOUT 'HIGH WIRE': You only take the High Wire if you’re desperate – or up to no good.

A notorious unmarked track through outback Australia, the ‘Wire’ crosses slabs of lawless land, body dumping grounds and mobile phone blackspots.

Harvey Buck is certainly desperate. Racing to be with his dying girlfriend, he encounters Clare Holland, whose car has broken down. He offers the hapless traveller a ride . . . and then their nightmare begins.

The pair are ambushed by a vengeful crew - and strapped into bomb vests. As part of a deadly game, Harvey and Clare are forced to commit a series of increasingly murderous missions, or else be blown to smithereens.

Senior Sergeant Edna Norris is dealing with a runaway teenager; not an unusual job in a place where people go to disappear. But an unfolding crime spree turns this outback cop’s night into a fight for survival. Hot on Harvey and Clare’s trail, Edna finds a burnt-out car, a missing woman, a bank robbery and a bullet-riddled body.

And this road trip from hell has only just begun . . .

MY THOUGHTS: Yeah, nah . . .

Very well written, tense as hell, but too much bloodshed and killing and not enough mystery and intrigue for me. Clare's story on its own would have made a wonderful read, and that was the most interesting aspect of this book for me. But I would have preferred a different outcome for her. I came very close to abandoning the read at this point.

Edna and Talon are terrific characters, and there is enough material there for a whole book. (Might we see more of them?)

And Buck . . . yes, I was rooting for him throughout. I just can't call him Harvey; he's not a Harvey. He's an interesting and complex character - tough as nails on the exterior but a bit of a marshmallow centre.

I guess what I am trying to say is that there was just a tad too much going on in this book for me. It's like three major weather systems colliding. I like a little more subtlety, finesse.

If you are looking for a tense, nail-biting, edge-of-your-seat thriller with bombs, hostages and lots of death, this is it! Sorry - it's just not my thing.

⭐⭐.5

#HighWire #NetGalley

THE AUTHOR: Candice Fox is the middle child of a large, eccentric family from Sydney's western suburbs composed of half-, adopted and pseudo siblings. The daughter of a parole officer and an enthusiastic foster-carer, Candice spent her childhood listening around corners to tales of violence, madness and evil as her father relayed his work stories to her mother and older brothers.

As a cynical and trouble-making teenager, her crime and gothic fiction writing was an escape from the calamity of her home life. She was constantly in trouble for reading Anne Rice in church and scaring her friends with tales from Australia's wealth of true crime writers.

DISCLOSURE: Thank you to Penguin Random House Australia via NetGalley for providing a digital ARC of High Wire by Candice Fox for review. All opinions expressed in this review are entirely my own personal opinions.

High Wire is Outback Gothic at its bleakly isolated best. The wide open expanses of the Australian outback leaves those who travel the lonely roads exposed to attack with little chance of help from passersby. When the ambush is planned and well executed, the feeling of hopelessness is even greater and the tension multiplies. This is a thriller that starts out with a jolt and then inexorably ups the tension page by page.

The High Wire is a barely-known dirt road running from Sydney to Broome through the middle of the country. It’s used as a “kind of shortcut for losers and drug runners”. It’s a dangerous track to traverse, a lawless environment where you regularly find burned out or abandoned cars along the way.

Harvey Buck knows the track and is equipped to survive most encounters along the way. Clare Holland has had the misfortune of breaking down, her car going up in flames and Harvey stops to offer her a lift.

Their car is brought to a sudden stop, all four tyres blown out by the road spikes laid across the track, ambushed by three men in balaclavas. Suddenly, Harvey’s contingencies for survival on the High Wire are blown to smithereens.

Senior Sergeant Edna Norris patrols from her one cop station, having to cover an unbelievably large region of Australia’s outback. She’s used to getting called out to trouble on the Wire. So when she finds Clare’s burnt out car and, some time later, Harvey’s abandoned car she starts forming a picture in her mind about what might have happened. It’s not a great picture and she commences slowly following the worrying trail.

The incidents on the High Wire aren’t random acts of violence. As the danger increases and the stakes are raised we’re gradually made aware of both Harvey’s and Clare’s respective pasts. The former soldier who served in Afghanistan and the Police Commissioner’s wife have had a storied past and past deeds have indeed brought them to this perilous situation.

In Harvey Buck and Edna Norris we have two highly competent operators and Candice Fox does a great job in fleshing them out. Although they’re in separate scenes throughout the book, they’re resourceful, filled with ingenuity and passionate in what they believe in. All these traits help them when they’re under attack but also hinders them when faced by authority. They’re kind of on opposite sides of the law, yet they equally come across as the story’s main protagonists.

In some respects High Wire is a wild chase thriller through some of the harshest, most unforgiving land on earth. But there’s far more at play here. Retribution, payback, domestic abuse and guilty consciences dominate the minds of just about all the players.

On this section of the High Wire, the action is intense as every moment leads up to a potentially cataclysmic finale. This is a strong plot that, for so much of the story, appears to be leading up to only one inevitable outcome. But then, it’s the unexpected that Candice Fox is so adept at delivering.

My thanks to Penguin Random House Australia and NetGalley for providing me with a digital ARC to allow me to read, enjoy and review this book.

Tension filled and thrilling. A delectable mix of characters. A crime thriller that you don't want to miss. It has everything from action, suspense and high speed adrenaline. One of the best crime books with a fulfilling plot.

Multi-award winning Australian crime writer Candice Fox returns her fiction to Australia for the first time in a few years with the high octane thriller High Wire. High Wire is a little bit Jack Reacher and a little bit Mad Max but all Fox who once again takes some familiar tropes, twists and embellishes them and makes them her own.
Harvey Buck is on a mercy mission to Sydney see his ex who is dying of cancer. With all planes out of action he takes to the High Wire, a secret road that runs across the barren heart of Australia. The High Wire is a road used by those wanting to stay off the radar. Despite the risks, Buck can’t help but stop when he sees a woman stranded by a burning car. But she is not the one he needed to be worried about, not long after both are kidnapped and strapped into bomb-vests by some shady characters who have a bone to pick with Buck from their days in the army and who are out for revenge. As the carnage starts to escalate, local cop Edna Norris, is trying to piece together the clues while also trying to help a wayward teen but finds her own past coming back to haunt her.
Fox acknowledges the influence of Lee Child in her Acknowledgements. And some of the Jack Reacher DNA can be seen in the creation of at least Harvey Buck. But anyone familiar with Fox’s other work will be aware of the way she builds complexity into the DNA of her characters. Buck might be a resourceful lone-wolf style hero but he carries a truckload of guilt. Edna is an intuitive cop and a force for justice who does not let the rules stand in her way but also has skeletons in her closet. The side characters too have shades of complexity to them that make this more than just a chase narrative.
After setting her last few books in the US, Fox returns and, as always, uses her Australian setting to great effect. The High Wire runs through the arid center of the country – the small towns, the isolated properties, the long stretches of lonely road.
From its opening sequences, High Wire delivers plenty of action and mayhem as it slowly builds to a potentially explosive finale. But Fox, as always, has both of these elements under control, slowly turning upping the tension (and the body count) as the story progresses. But she also keeps readers invested through a pair conflicted protagonists with tarnished hearts of gold.

Ingenious plotting
Fast paced narratives
Quirky but very real protagonists
Rural Noir


This is just the second book I’ve read by Candice Fox and both have been spellbinding
This is unusual for the cleverness and inventiveness of its plot- which alone is enough to mark her as one of the better crime authors staining page with ink at the moment. Add to that well drawn, believably human characters and we have a truly special combination. I genuinely think Candice a Fox is one of the best crime writers on the planet.

Fast paced and action filled. Twists and turns and an interesting mix of characters along the way. It's really great to read books set in Australia and the High Wire was a really interesting one! A great choice for lovers of Australian action adventure.

Another great action packed novel from this author. What I like most about these books are the depth of character that is developed … oh and the action and twists and turns. Not usually my genre and I always read this author. Thanks to the author. Thank you to #netgalley and the publisher for an ARC.

Just wow! Love a Candice Fox thriller set in Australia. This is a crazy rollercoaster ride that will have you on the edge of your seat unable to put it down. Words to describe would be explosive, fast paced, gripping and exciting. A bloody fantastic read, enjoyed every page! Highly recommend.