Attention has begun to turn toward Australian and New Zealand crime writing in recent years, with many terrific authors becoming readily available to book lovers in the Northern Hemisphere. Sarah Bailey impressed last year with her debut, The Dark Lake, which introduced troubled, small-town cop Gemma Woodstock.

Bailey tackles the “difficult second novel” by plunging Woodstock into new challenges in a new environment: she’s said “see ya later” to her rural hometown, her son and ex-husband, and is now looking to advance her career as a detective living a lonely life in the big city of Melbourne. She chases killers and battles emotional emptiness with bottles and beds. She gets a chance to shine when a homeless man is murdered, but then is quickly reassigned to a new case with a much higher priority: a young and beloved local actor is stabbed to death in front of hundreds of people on a big film set. The high-profile nature of the attack ramps up the pressure on Woodstock and her colleagues.

Bailey delivers another solid page-turner that deepens the character of Woodstock, whose behavior and choices may divide readers, but is messily, authentically human. The crime story gets entangled with #MeToo and other issues that give it a very current feel. At times, Bailey’s writing is a little overblown, which neuters the power that some of the otherwise important themes and moments might have. But that’s a relatively minor issue in what is otherwise a good read that solidifies Woodstock as an intriguing character well worth following through an ongoing series.