Home

The Bluffs: Tasmanian author Kyle Perry keeps tension high in thrilling debut

Gemma NisbetThe West Australian
Kyle Perry
Camera IconKyle Perry

The dramatic landscapes of central Tasmania’s Great Western Tiers — a place where “you could walk in circles for days and never see a path right beneath you” — makes for an eerily atmospheric setting in The Bluffs, the horror-inflected debut crime novel by Australian author Kyle Perry.

Billed as “Picnic at Hanging Rock meets Chris Hammer’s Scrublands”, it tells the story of four teenage girls who mysteriously go missing during a school camping trip in the mountains.

The whole situation is made even stranger by local legends about the Hungry Man, a sinister “hermit bushman” blamed for abducting a number of young women from the area in the 1980s — and who, some speculate, may be responsible for the latest disappearances.

The story that ensues is ambitious in scope, taking in everything from police corruption, intergenerational trauma and the history of Aboriginal Tasmanians to self-harm, statutory rape and the dark side of social media.

Get in front of tomorrow's news for FREE

Journalism for the curious Australian across politics, business, culture and opinion.

READ NOW

Perry brings his own experiences in the Tasmanian wilderness and his career as a youth worker and counsellor in drug rehabilitation, high schools and youth shelters to bear on his small-town setting. His fictional Limestone Creek is a gritty and claustrophobic “mongrel town” that’s home to feuding drug dealers, roided-up teachers, tattooed pastors and even the odd teenage YouTube celebrity.

As the novel unfolds, the point of view switches among a core group of characters centred on Con Badenhorst, a detective recently transferred to Tasmania from the mainland who is traumatised by memories of a particularly horrific past case.

There are some issues with the pacing of the narrative, particularly in the novel’s first half. But once the action gets going in earnest, it’s difficult to put The Bluffs down, with Perry delivering some genuinely surprising plot twists right up until the final page.

Get the latest news from thewest.com.au in your inbox.

Sign up for our emails