Red River Road

Anna Downes’s extraordinary next thriller Red River Road follows a woman desperate to discover what happened to her sister on a solo road trip through the Australian outback.

Katy Sweeney is looking for her sister. A year earlier, just three weeks into a solo vanlife trip, her free-spirited younger sister, Phoebe, vanished without a trace on the remote, achingly beautiful coastal highway in Western Australia. With no witnesses, no leads, and no DNA evidence, the case has gone cold. But Katy refuses to give up on her.

Using Phoebe’s social media accounts as a map, Katy retraces her sister’s steps, searching for any clues the police may have missed. Was Phoebe being followed? Who had she met along the way, and how dangerous were they?

And then Katy’s path collides with that of Beth, who is on the run from her own dark past. Katy realizes that Beth might be her best--and only--chance of finding the truth, and the two women form an uneasy alliance to find out what really happened to Phoebe in this wild, beautiful, and perilous place.

Anna Downes takes us on a twist-filled journey into the dark side of solo female travel, in this gripping novel that explores what drives us to keep searching for those we have lost, the family bonds that can make or break us, and the deception of memory.

ANNA DOWNES (she/her) was born and raised in Sheffield, UK, but now lives just north of Sydney, Australia, with her husband and two children. She worked as an actress before turning her attention to writing. She has degrees from both Manchester University (drama) and RADA (acting). She was short-listed for the Sydney Writers’ Room Short Story Prize (2017) and long-listed for the Margaret River Short Story Competition (2018). Her previous novels include The Safe Place and The Shadow House.