by Candice Fox
But I wasn’t sure now. When Eden lost her parents, it had been just the beginning of what she was. So much would come after that. Their murders stood forever as the sentinel over a life cluttered with darkness and evil and pain. She was the afterwards. She was the clean-up crew, the response of nature after the event that righted the balance of living and dead, of agony matched with agony. She was the seed that cracked free of its shell and grew, despite all odds, after the fire had ripped through the land, destroying everything else.
Eden was my fire. And what was growing in me now as I lay in the hospital bed was something so new, something so different, that I could feel its tendrils creeping up my insides, feel its curling sprouts fluttering open in my mind. Those seeds had been there a long time, but it was only the heat of the bullets Eden had put in me, and the child’s heart she now held hostage, that had given them what they needed to sprout.
I didn’t know what I was becoming. But I knew it wasn’t good.
Acknowledgements
This book, like all my books, is the product of my apprenticeship under truly great minds in creative writing teaching in Australia. Most notably these include Dr Gary Crew and Dr Ross Watkins of the University of the Sunshine Coast, and James Forsyth. I also owe much to Dr Kim Wilkins and Dr Roslyn Petelin of the University of Queensland, and Dr Camilla Nelson of the University of Notre Dame, Sydney.
I am grateful to a number of cafés and restaurants who have tolerated my quiet and persistent yet hardly lucrative presence, including Marcelle on Macleay in Potts Point and The Upside Café in Chippendale.
I couldn’t do what I do without my tough and brilliant agent Gaby Naher and that sweet-hearted Bev Cousins.
My thanks to my wonderful editor, Kathryn Knight.
Finally, my lovely Tim. Here is a man who endures living with a crime writer who, among offering constant trivia about killers, can’t bare to have him read her work without checking what page he’s on every five minutes so that she can know if his emotional expressions are appropriate to the material. You are my rock.
Photo: John Heweston
Candice Fox is the middle child of a large, eccentric family from Sydney’s western suburbs composed of half-, adopted and pseudo-siblings. The daughter of a parole officer and an enthusiastic foster-carer, Candice spent her childhood listening around corners to tales of violence, madness and evil as her father relayed his work stories to her mother and older brothers.
Bankstown born and bred, she failed to conform to military life in a brief stint as an officer in the Royal Australian Navy at age eighteen. At twenty, she turned her hand to academia and taught high school through two undergraduate and two postgraduate degrees. Candice lectures in writing at the University of Notre Dame, Sydney, while undertaking a PhD in literary censorship and terrorism.
Her first novel, Hades, won the Ned Kelly Award f or best debut in 2014 from the Australian Crime Writers Association. The sequel, Eden, won the Ned Kelly Award for best crime novel in 2015, making Candice only the second author to win these accolades back-to-back. Fall is the third Archer and Bennett novel. Candice is also currently co-writing a thriller with James Patterson, set in the Australian outback and due for release in 2016.
Also by Candice Fox
Hades
Eden
HADES
Candice Fox
Winner of the Ned Kelly Award 2014 for Best First Fiction
Everyone knew what Hades was doing. Everyone knew what he was capable of.
Hades Archer surrounds himself with the things others leave behind. Their trash becomes the twisted sculptures that line his junkyard. The bodies they want disposed of become his problem – for a fee.
Then one night a man arrives on his doorstep, clutching a small bundle that he wants ‘lost’. And Hades makes a decision that will change everything …
Twenty years later, homicide detective Frank Bennett feels like the luckiest man on the force when he meets his new partner, the dark and beautiful Eden Archer. But there’s something strange about Eden and her brother, Eric. Something he can’t quite put his finger on.
At first, as they race to catch a very different kind of serial killer, his partner’s sharp instincts come in handy. But soon Frank’s wondering if she’s as dangerous as the man they hunt.
‘One of the stand-out crime thrillers of the last few years.’ The Chronicle
‘Compelling and all the more impressive for being Candice Fox’s debut … a chilling read.’ Sydney Morning Herald
EDEN
Candice Fox
Winner of the Ned Kelly Award 2015 for Best Fiction
I fool myself that Eden has a heart – that she would at least have trouble killing me …
Most police duos run on trust, loyalty, and the desire to see killers in court. But Detective Frank Bennett’s partner, the enigmatic Eden Archer, has nothing to offer him but darkness and danger. She doesn’t mind catching killers – but it’s not the courthouse where her justice is served.
And now Eden is about to head undercover to find three missing girls. The only link between the victims is a remote farm where the desperate go to hide and blood falls more often than rain. For Frank, the priority is to keep his partner monitored 24/7 while she’s there – but is it for Eden’s protection, or to protect their suspects from her?
Across the city at the Utulla Tip, someone is watching Hades Archer, a man whose criminal reputation is the stuff of legend. Unmasking the stalker for him might be just what Frank needs to stay out of trouble while Eden’s away.
But it’s going to take a trip into Hades’ past to discover the answers – and what Frank uncovers may well put everyone in danger …
‘A sizzling page-turner.’ Daily Telegraph
‘Fox again grabs her reader by the throat from the get-go and does not relinquish her grip … Gripping, confronting and powerful.’ Western Advocate
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Version 1.0
Fall
9780857987433
First published by Bantam in 2015
Copyright © Candice Fox 2015
The moral right of the author has been asserted.
A Bantam book
Published by Random House Australia Pty Ltd
Level 3, 100 Pacific Highway, North Sydney NSW 2060
www.randomhouse.com.au
Random House Books is part of the Penguin Random House group of companies whose addresses can be found at global.penguinrandomhouse.com/offices.
National Library of Australia
Cataloguing-in-Publication entry
Fox, Candice, author
Fall/Candice Fox
ISBN 978 0 85798 743 3 (ebook: epub)
Detective and mystery stories
Sydney (N.S.W.) – Fiction
A823.4
Cover image (leaves) by CulturaRM/Masterfile
Cover design by Lisa Brewster/Blacksheep
