The Dark Mine
(2025)(The second book in the Kate Hayes Australian Outback Thriller series)
A Story by Phillip Strang
She was sent to sign off on an accident. She uncovered an outback noir murder worth $200,000.
Detective Sergeant Kate Hayes — a female detective with a reputation for cutting through lies — arrives in Andamooka expecting routine paperwork. A miner has died in a tunnel collapse, common in opal country where fortunes are clawed from unstable shafts beneath the South Australian desert.
But Barry Mitchell’s death wasn’t bad luck. Someone set charges to bury him. And Kate knows why: an opal strike worth $200,000, hidden for twenty‑five years. Mitchell’s former partner and ex‑girlfriend both wanted it. One of them killed for it.
Now the stakes escalate. A woman holding geological surveys of every valuable claim has been abducted. She’s the only one who knows which abandoned mines are still worth killing for ''' and she’s trapped underground, running out of air.
Kate follows the killers into miles of hand‑dug tunnels, unstable rock, and darkness that swallows torchlight. They have explosives. They’ve already collapsed one mine. They won’t hesitate to bury another.
In Andamooka, fortunes are made in the dark. So are graves.
Perfect for fans of Jane Harper, Chris Hammer, and Garry Disher.
A gripping police procedural and Australian crime thriller set in the red heart of the outback.
Book 2 in the Kate Hayes Australian Outback Thriller series.
Genre: Mystery
Detective Sergeant Kate Hayes — a female detective with a reputation for cutting through lies — arrives in Andamooka expecting routine paperwork. A miner has died in a tunnel collapse, common in opal country where fortunes are clawed from unstable shafts beneath the South Australian desert.
But Barry Mitchell’s death wasn’t bad luck. Someone set charges to bury him. And Kate knows why: an opal strike worth $200,000, hidden for twenty‑five years. Mitchell’s former partner and ex‑girlfriend both wanted it. One of them killed for it.
Now the stakes escalate. A woman holding geological surveys of every valuable claim has been abducted. She’s the only one who knows which abandoned mines are still worth killing for ''' and she’s trapped underground, running out of air.
Kate follows the killers into miles of hand‑dug tunnels, unstable rock, and darkness that swallows torchlight. They have explosives. They’ve already collapsed one mine. They won’t hesitate to bury another.
In Andamooka, fortunes are made in the dark. So are graves.
Perfect for fans of Jane Harper, Chris Hammer, and Garry Disher.
A gripping police procedural and Australian crime thriller set in the red heart of the outback.
Book 2 in the Kate Hayes Australian Outback Thriller series.
Genre: Mystery
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