Devil Mountain by Inessa Jackson

Title: Devil Mountain

Author: Inessa Jackson

Genre: Crime

Publisher: Simon and Schuster

Published: 26^th May 2026

Format: Paperback

Pages: 336

Price: $34.99

Synopsis: A wickedly dark police procedural with a hint of the supernatural, this crime novel is Dinuka McKenzie meets The Bluffs.

When Detective Sergeant Anastasia Brown is sent to investigate a grisly murder in a small New South Wales town, she welcomes the chance to run from heartbreak and humiliation. But she quickly discovers that this is no ordinary murder. The body of a popular doctor has been found on the mountain, chained and burned, with arcane ­symbols carved into the soles of his feet – and the boy who found him swears he saw a ghost lingering in the trees.

Is this a clever killer with a flair for the macabre? Or the work of an elusive Wiccan coven that worships on the mountain? Or, even stranger, are the local murmurs of the mountain being haunted more than just folklore??

As the investigation grows ever murkier, Ana realises that everyone in town has a secret … and some are deadly.

~*~

Detective Anastasia Brown has recently been promoted, but office and personal conflicts, mind games and an ex determined to ruin her career because of his own male insecurities has changed things for her. So, when she’s told she’ll be headed to a small town in NSW to investigate a grisly murder, she jumps at the chance.

Except, it’s not that straight forward. Symbols linked to the occult, Wicca and the arcane are carved into the burnt victim’s feet. The local doctor is missing, and turns out to be the victim, and a young boy swears he saw a ghost in the trees near the murder. Ana is on the trail of a killer with a flair for the macabre, and has to talk to a coven of local witches when evidence points to Wiccan involvement. Local murmurs and folklore are woven around the case, and things are a lot more complicated than they seem.

Ana is frustrated when things get murkier and murkier, when personal involvements start to impact the case and how she gets on with the local cops, and her history is threatening to follow her. She garners a few allies in the story, but it’s clear as the novel goes on that everyone in town is hiding something, and some of them judge her before they even get to know her. She feels alone, though seeing how Camille and her new partner Harry are such great allies and friends, the two people who felt like they always had her back.

The story grew in complexity as it moved through the paces, building on everything, and bringing things in well as the story examined the roles of misogyny and gender, and the intimacies of small towns, and the way they judge people or see people. In doing so, it explores things in an intimate way, allowing character growth and seeing how the world can be stacked people, even when they’re the ones facing discrimination or punishment for things they didn’t do. Or carrying the blame for protecting the feelings of someone else, in this story, the men who are threatened by Ana and her role in the workplace. 

Everything moves towards an intriguing conclusion, tugging at threads and secrets as Ana defies orders to rest, determined to solve the case and show everyone that she can do her job, that she is right and that the men trying to ruin her life are the ones in the wrong. It’s about the delicate balance of speaking out and toeing the line, yet it is time that Ana let herself be heard in so many ways. She’s a good detective, it’s just that there are people out there trying to undermine her, hurt her or ruin her career.

The story is fast-paced – I managed to read it in one sitting, and it was one that I thought I would read over a few days. But it was compelling and different whilst still hitting the beats that a lot of crime novels hit. There was something about it that stood out and made it sing in different ways to other crime books. Everything worked well in this book, and it was engaging and had a great ending that I felt worked well, without falling into expected traps. I think this is also what made it stand out because I didn’t go into this with expectations either way, so this was a great debut novel.