For Reasons of Their Own is a bleak chronicle of implacable fate, revenge, and murder set in 2014 in and around Melbourne, Australia, where a tired and frustrated Robbie Gray, a Victoria detective inspector, broods over the assignment her boss (Ted Hobbs) has given her, to attend undercover a week-long International Disaster Conference commemorating the tenth anniversary of the 2004 Indian Ocean earthquake and tsunami.

Partly, Gray’s assignment stems from concerns by the Australian federal government over the high number of Muslim conference attendees, considering rising tensions from Islamic fundamentalism in neighboring countries. The government wants an experienced police officer monitoring the conference and participants on the lookout for anyone using the conference as cover for entering the country to commit a terrorist act. But Gray knows the real reason Hobbs has tapped her for the assignment.

During a recent murder investigation Gray’s team had conducted, a large quantity of cocaine went missing. While an internal police enquiry exonerated Gray and her team, a cloud of suspicion still hovers over them all. So, Gray acknowledges the true reason for the conference assignment is that her superiors have lost confidence in her because of the missing narcotics, which she considers a professional slap in the face.

From the international disaster conference, the focus shifts to the discovery of an unidentified body in a wetlands area of the rural community of Acacia Glen near Palmerston. Almost by happenstance, DI Gray gets the case when it becomes apparent the someone murdered the victim. In time, the police identify the victim as Dr. Hasam Alamri, a Jakarta-based UN official and one of the Muslims who had been in Australia for the disaster conference. Painstakingly, Gray and her understaffed team of investigators piece together facts they hope will lead to Alamri’s murderer. The case is rife with complexities from the start. But things become truly convulsed when the Australian federal police and intelligence services establish a tenuous link between Alamri and a terrorist plot. They pull the rug out from under Gray and take over the case. But she can’t let it go.

After gaining the approval of her obstinately uncooperative and politically sensitive boss Hobbs, she doggedly pursues a parallel investigation. The intrepid Robbie Gray, however flawed and troubled, is perhaps the most fully human and sympathetic character I’ve encountered in a novel this year. Stuart’s artful fusion of a murder investigation with the multi-layered obstacles Gray must overcome to solve it—including exorcising her own personal demons—is accomplished using vivid imagery and a formidable display of stunningly written scenes that cohere into a fully satisfying narrative that confers horrific intensity on the escalating chaos, while precisely dramatizing the sense of issues that stalk and punish Stuart’s characters.

This is a strangely beguiling book. On one level, it’s the story of a complex murder investigation. On another, it’s about a strong woman’s faith being tested in a myriad of ways. The closure we’re offered at the end isn’t as complete as I would have liked, nonetheless, this is magnificent writing. And, perhaps it’s not the sort of story where every thread should be wrapped up tidily in a bow.

I’ve read some truly exceptional crime fiction books in 2021, but For Reasons of Their Own is easily my favorite of the year. Anyone who enjoys reading excellent crime, mystery, and thriller writing will love this book. I’m left eagerly anticipating what Stuart will do for an encore after writing such a brilliant and extraordinary debut novel.

Original Sin Press published For Reasons of Their Own by Chris Stuart from July 20, 2021. I purchased the copy of the book used for this review, representing my honest opinions.