Hero by Patricia Wolf

Hero is the fifth DS Lucas Walker novel from Patricia Wolf, after Outback, Paradise, Opal and Nemesis. Wolf grew up in Mount Isa, in far northwest Queensland, and now writes from Berlin, and her outback crime novels carry the dust and heat of the country she came from.

Walker is back in rural Queensland, in the small town of Katima, with his own family in trouble and the fallout of his last case still hanging over him. When a young man is found hanging in a park it looks like a suicide, until it doesn't. Then a bigger death lands: Caden Conroy, an Australian cricket hero, is murdered, and the media descends. Brisbane Homicide sidelines Walker, so he works the connections on his own, trying to see whether the cases are linked, and what it will cost him to find out.

Australian outback crime for readers of Jane Harper and Chris Hammer. Each book stands on its own, though Walker's story rewards reading in order.