The Elsinore Vanish

Joanna Baker writes murder mysteries set in small villages and remote places. Her first two books are 5 star rated on Amazon. Devastation Road was reviewed in The Age of Melbourne as "outstanding". Reviewers love that the books are intriguing and provide all the clues, cleverly concealed. Joanna was born and raised in Hobart, Tasmania, stunningly beautiful, lonely, remote, with wilderness, wild coastlines and a complex and fascinating history. Tasmania is a gift for a crime writer. In 2004 Sisters in Crime Australia awarded Devastation Road the Davitt Award for best Young Adult Novel. The Age described it as " an outstanding first novel, a genuinely puzzling and intriguing murder mystery with a sophisticated grasp of character." Joanna says: "I aim to write page-turners and mind games. I'm fascinated by how we think about ourselves and other people and the world, what we say to each other, how we communicate, how we obfuscate ... and how we lie.I write about families and close friends, people who think they know each other really well. But maybe they don't."

A tragic death, an impossible murder - this puzzle will need more than careful logic …


Looking back, it's obvious we should never have kept going. But stories feel different when you're inside them.



And I didn't realise. That's my other excuse. I had no idea how bad it was going to be.



Ten months ago, in the Beechworth Town Hall, Tim Williams died horribly, poisoned with potassium cyanide in front of a room full of people.



The murder was impossible. When it happened the poison was locked in a cupboard two kilometres away with someone sitting in front of it.



The police have got nowhere with the case, and now Matt Tingle and Chess Febey have been invited to Beechworth to see if they can get to the truth.



It gets messy. Everybody is lying to them. There are two seriously big guys following them around in a van.



And there's a kid and who keeps showing them a card trick. The Elsinore Vanish. What's that all about?



Then they see the van again, and this time it stops …



Now they're in serious danger. And Chess's logic isn't helping. If she wants to catch this murderer she needs a new pathway to the truth. She needs to learn to understand people.



And she has to look deep into the mysteries of The Elsinore Vanish.