The Devil's Puppet
(2025)(The fifth book in the Sarah Reeves Australian Outback Thriller series)
A novel by Phillip Strang
In the parched landscape of Alice Springs, where unforgiving heat intensifies every human emotion, Detective Senior Constable Sarah Reeves is called to a motel room where a man lies dead from a point-blank shotgun blast.
What begins as a seemingly random shooting rapidly escalates into a killing spree. The killer, Curtis Langford, is hunting for pieces of his missing prison cellmate, convinced that innocent victims have "absorbed" parts of his friend.
When bodies begin appearing across town, Sarah must navigate the brutal mechanics of tracking a delusional killer and the failures that enabled his psychotic paranoia. With each victim, the pattern becomes clearer: Curtis isn't choosing randomly—he's systematically eliminating anyone connected to his missing friend's world.
Sarah uncovers disturbing links between the victims and the local drug trade, revealing how Curtis's delusions have transformed fragments of truth into a deadly rescue mission. With time running out before the next killing, each revelation tests Sarah's understanding of the systems that created this tragedy.
The harsh Alice Springs landscape conceals the truth about what really happened to Maury Brighton, where institutional neglect, untreated mental illness, and criminal opportunity converge to create the perfect storm for violence.
Genre: Mystery
What begins as a seemingly random shooting rapidly escalates into a killing spree. The killer, Curtis Langford, is hunting for pieces of his missing prison cellmate, convinced that innocent victims have "absorbed" parts of his friend.
When bodies begin appearing across town, Sarah must navigate the brutal mechanics of tracking a delusional killer and the failures that enabled his psychotic paranoia. With each victim, the pattern becomes clearer: Curtis isn't choosing randomly—he's systematically eliminating anyone connected to his missing friend's world.
Sarah uncovers disturbing links between the victims and the local drug trade, revealing how Curtis's delusions have transformed fragments of truth into a deadly rescue mission. With time running out before the next killing, each revelation tests Sarah's understanding of the systems that created this tragedy.
The harsh Alice Springs landscape conceals the truth about what really happened to Maury Brighton, where institutional neglect, untreated mental illness, and criminal opportunity converge to create the perfect storm for violence.
Genre: Mystery
Used availability for Phillip Strang's The Devil's Puppet