Should a story, which begins in a suburb you know well, which involves sexual assault, and ends in the middle of nowhere, come with a warning even if there is a love story in it? I think so. Here is the warning: Pheasants Nest is a terrifying read – compelling, but frightening. It is a story centred on an act of violence.

This is award-winning investigative reporter and nonfiction author Louise Milligan’s first foray into fiction, and it is a blockbuster of a story. (Surely, it will end up as a television series or film.) It is the story of every woman’s nightmare. Kate Delaney, a journalist, is out with her girlfriends in Northcote. On her way home, she is raped and kidnapped by a random man she ridiculed. She is driven across the state to the middle of NSW. Kate, like Milligan, knows the statistics about what happens to women who find themselves in these situations. She understands how the police and the media work. She knows the chances of this crime being solved are slim. She knows that the police will question her boyfriend, Liam, and that he will remain a suspect.

We meet in parks to hold vigils, we hold our keys as a weapon, and message one another when we get home because of these cases. I believe Milligan has written this novel to illustrate to us all how each part of the public story is ours. It is possible your thoughts will wander to cases in the press right now, or to stories that do not get published, or even to memories of past cases and women not found. Stories like this that are set in familiar surrounds are important because they remind us to look after one another, to come forward with our truths, and to be optimistic for change. Louise Milligan has written a superb and disturbing page-turner. I could not put it down until I reached the end.