The Salt Lakes
(2025)(The fourth book in the Kate Hayes Australian Outback Thriller series)
A novel by Phillip Strang
He calls it education. Kate Hayes calls it murder.
Detective Kate Hayes has spent eighteen months rebuilding her career after the Protocol Seven scandal. Now, leading her first major task force, she faces a killer who poses his victims like art—strangled, positioned facing east, left in South Australia's remote salt lakes to mummify in the harsh desert air.
All solo female travellers. All independent women who refused to be afraid. All murdered by a man who believes he's teaching them—and society—a necessary lesson about the dangers of freedom.
When the killer contacts Kate directly, taunting her with his philosophy and hinting at a fifth victim already captive, the investigation becomes personal. Colin Thorne isn't hiding. He's performing. Each murder is a statement, each salt-preserved body a warning. And he won't stop until his mission is complete.
From the underground dugouts of Coober Pedy to the vast white emptiness of Lake Eyre, Kate must track a former soldier with tactical training, local knowledge, and twenty years of planning. The outback holds secrets in its red earth and crystalline salt. But this time, the landscape will reveal truth instead of concealing it—if Kate can decode its evidence before another woman dies.
A gripping thriller about serial murder, twisted ideology, and one detective's determination to prove that women's freedom is worth fighting for.
Perfect for fans of Jane Harper's THE DRY and Chris Hammer's SCRUBLANDS.
Genre: Mystery
Detective Kate Hayes has spent eighteen months rebuilding her career after the Protocol Seven scandal. Now, leading her first major task force, she faces a killer who poses his victims like art—strangled, positioned facing east, left in South Australia's remote salt lakes to mummify in the harsh desert air.
All solo female travellers. All independent women who refused to be afraid. All murdered by a man who believes he's teaching them—and society—a necessary lesson about the dangers of freedom.
When the killer contacts Kate directly, taunting her with his philosophy and hinting at a fifth victim already captive, the investigation becomes personal. Colin Thorne isn't hiding. He's performing. Each murder is a statement, each salt-preserved body a warning. And he won't stop until his mission is complete.
From the underground dugouts of Coober Pedy to the vast white emptiness of Lake Eyre, Kate must track a former soldier with tactical training, local knowledge, and twenty years of planning. The outback holds secrets in its red earth and crystalline salt. But this time, the landscape will reveal truth instead of concealing it—if Kate can decode its evidence before another woman dies.
A gripping thriller about serial murder, twisted ideology, and one detective's determination to prove that women's freedom is worth fighting for.
Perfect for fans of Jane Harper's THE DRY and Chris Hammer's SCRUBLANDS.
Genre: Mystery
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