Daylesford’s Secrets in Tell Me Why

Writer Georgie Harvey travels from Melbourne to Daylesford to search for a missing farmer in Sandi Wallace's Tell Me Why. The town's mineral-springs setting offers a picturesque surface, but Georgie soon connects the disappearance with an unresolved mystery concerning the woman's husband.

An outsider starts asking questions

Georgie's inquiry disturbs secrets that local people have reasons to keep buried. As a writer looking into a missing person, she is not approaching the community with the same authority or priorities as its police. Reporting what she has found brings her into contact with officer John Franklin.

Franklin is a solo father and a maverick within the local force. He already has a serious case of his own: a stalker is targeting single mothers. Both characters have work to pursue before their paths cross, and Georgie's arrival adds another demand to Franklin's existing concerns.

Friction complicates the search

The meeting between Georgie and Franklin produces sparks, and his initial assessment of her may be too quick. Their interaction adds a question about judgment to the question of what happened to the missing woman.

Georgie's questions gain her enemies, making persistence costly in a town with secrets to protect. Franklin has his own case to manage, yet his view of the visiting writer may affect what he learns about hers. Their friction becomes part of an investigation in which overlooking someone can matter as much as deciding to trust them.