Tipping Point by Dinuka McKenzie

Title: Tipping Point

Author: Dinuka McKenzie

Genre: Crime

Publisher: HarperCollins Australia

Published: 31^st January 2024

Format: Paperback

Pages: 368

Price: $32.99

Synopsis: A suicide. A shooting. And a reckoning, decades in the making. The must-read new Detective Kate Miles novel from ‘a born storyteller’ (Michael Robotham).

Weeks from Christmas in the sweltering heat of summer, Detective Kate Miles’ estranged brother, Luke Grayling, returns home to Esserton to farewell a childhood friend – Ant Reed, dead by suicide. Within days of the funeral, another young man, Marcus Rowntree, is found shot dead in the back paddock of his property.

Almost twenty years ago, Luke, Ant and Marcus were best mates in high school and now two of the three friends are dead. A tragic coincidence? Or is there something more sinister connecting the three men?

When Luke is identified as a person of interest in Marcus’s death, Kate once again finds herself in the middle of a media storm, sidelined from the case and battling accusations of conflict of interest. As press attention deepens, and uncomfortable truths about Luke’s personal life and past events come to light, Kate is forced to contend between loyalty to the police force, and the bonds of friendship and blood.

~*~

Detective Kate Miles and her ever-present family are back – and this time, her brother, Luke is coming home for a friend’s funeral. Luke and the rest of Esserton have gathered to farewell Ant Reed, who took his own life out of the blue. In the days following the funeral, another of Luke’s friends, Marcus Rowntree, is dead, shot at the back of his property. Rumours start swirling – did he kill himself or was he murdered? Kate and her team at the Esserton police station begin investigating the deaths, which lead them into the past – when Luke and his friends were in high school, and there are hints that something happened – and a suggestion that two out of three supposedly taking their own lives is a tragic coincidence – but maybe it is something more – maybe someone in town knows something about the three friends.

Soon, as a range of incidents lead the police to suspect Luke – a car, his presence, and his connection to Marcus and Ant, as well as a few other incidences that occur in Esserton, and issues that follow him from Sydney. Poor Kate – she’s just managed to get out of the media storm that surrounded her former boss’s corruption from a few months ago and the rumours that almost destroyed her father and his new partner, Caleb. Now, the beast is back, swirling around Kate as the past starts to catch up with Luke, and people suspect him of all sorts of things – and Luke has secrets of his own. To help her through things, Kate relies on Darnley, her friend at work, Josh Ellis, who has come into help, a new boss – Esposito, who is questionable and has a past with Kate. And her childhood friend, Sarah – but something never feels quite right, and of course, in a novel like this, anyone could have had a hand in what has been happening. Kate’s ability to connect with people are tested, especially as the novel went on. Nothing is left to chance in this novel, everything Is deliberate and used purposefully to enhance the story and bring everything together with all the ups and downs necessary in a novel like this to keep readers on the edge of their seats.

Everything we know and love about Kate’s world is back – we’re still in the same year as the last book, as Amy is now eight months old, and it’s December – heading towards Christmas as the investigations emerge. Not only are Kate and her team investigating what happened to Ant and Marcus, but a case from the past comes back. Dinuka has pulled all of these elements together effectively, ensuring that the twists and turns in Kate’s story are high stakes for everyone, and ultimately prove that nobody is ever safe in a crime novel, and everything we know and hold dear can, and will be tested – blood, family, friendship and loyalties come under fire. There are things bubbling along in the background, and I had a sense that something bad was going to happen – that not everything would be okay as the book counted down to just before Christmas, and as the story swirled around certain characters, their lives, and their families. In doing this, Dinuka set up an array of possibilities of what could happen and all the potential outcomes that led to the end of the novel, which deftly sets us up for a fourth novel, perhaps with a slight difference. The title, Tipping Point, has multiple layers and meanings for each character – Kate, Luke, Darnley, Geoff, and many other peripheral characters whom all have a distinct and necessary impact on the novel and story.

Overall, I enjoyed this novel, as the threads that at first all seemed coincidental, were not – but that’s how a good crime novel works. Showing us what happened, and laying out the possibilities and suspects who come in and out, with hints at things that are not quite what they seem. There were some things that ended up being quite different to what I thought they were. Dinuka pulled this off eloquently and effectively to create a thrilling addition to the Kate Miles series, and one that goes deeper into her family and connections to Esserton, as her history is revealed layer by layer, and embarking on a journey that refers back to what she has gone through in the past to set up what is to come. I am eager to see where Kate goes next, and what life has in store for her in the next book.