In this day and age, it’s hard to read a crime novel and not imagine what it would be like as a television adaptation. Pip Fioretti’s books about an ex-soldier turned bush cop in the wild west (east) that was New South Wales just after the turn of the 20th century are no exception, and they would be a splendid mix of The Man from Snowy River and Jack Reacher. (Go on, picture it, I dare you.)

Gus Hawkins moves around a lot and loves his horses (although his horsemanship might not be quite up to Banjo Paterson’s lofty standards). Against his father’s wishes, he fought for Mother England in the Boer War, and returned home a traumatised, but decorated, man. When we first meet Gus, in Bone Lands, he is the sole mounted trooper in a rural town in the middle of nowhere, trying to figure out who slaughtered three young siblings and why.

Fast forward a year or two, and Gus has been sent to a new post in the goldfields, an eight-hour ride from Bathurst and any form of aid. As soon as he arrives, all hell breaks loose, and it appears that at least one of the locals wishes anyone in uniform dead. Under attack and barely keeping his own fears in check, Gus must solve a spate of crimes with only a motley crew of junior troopers and a lost dog by his side.

Into the brutal world that was regional Australia in 1912, Fioretti has imagined a man of compassion, wit, and ingenuity, the kind of police officer any town would be lucky to have. Despite his personal struggles and his occasional failures at ‘do-gooding’, Gus can see three sides to every story, and acts accordingly, and his narration of events as they unfold should endear him to every reader fortunate enough to meet him between the pages, and hopefully, one day, on our screens.