Shaken by a scrape with death, big-city detective Joe Cashin is posted away from the homicide squad to the quiet town on the South Australian coast where he grew up. Carrying physical scars and not a little guilt, he spends his time playing the country cop, walking his dogs, and thinking about how it all was before. When a prominent local person is attacked and left for dead, Cashin is thrust into what becomes a murder investigation. The evidence points to three boys from the nearby aboriginal community, whom everyone seems to want to blame. But Cashin is unconvinced and soon begins to see the outlines of something far more terrible than a burglary gone wrong.

Winner of Australia's major prize for crime fiction, The Broken Shore is a transfixing novel about a place, a family, politics, power, and the need to live decently in the world.