Vanish is the third instalment in Shelley Burr's rural noir series featuring Private Investigator Lane Holland. This book is mostly set further south in NSW than the first two books, Wake and Ripper, but carries on character arcs and themes from its predecessors.

Former Private Investigator Lane Holland is nearing the end of his prison sentence for a crime he didn't commit, yet feels moral responsibility for. He's keen to get out of prison and support his younger sister Evelyn (Lynnie), both emotionally and financially. As series readers will recall, Lane had developed a relationship of mutual respect with Prison Governor Patton Carver, founded on Carver's desperation over his daughter Matilda Carver, who has been missing for nearly 20 years. Governor Carver is hopeful that a man of Holland's skill may be able to locate Matilda, or at least explain her sudden disappearance, where police and other mainstream methods have failed. When Holland discloses a potential lead that he's uncovered, tracing Matilda to a farm business north of the Hume Reservoir, Carver arranges supervised release for Holland to undertake further covert investigations.

Lane is transferred from the Special Purpose Centre (Prison) at Bowral to join the workforce at Karpathy Farm, which this reader imagines to be located somewhere in the highlands to the east of Albury, on the NSW side of the Murray River and Lake Hume. The fictional town of Georges Bridge nearby brings to mind small towns on the southern (Victorian) side of the river, such as Corryong and Tintaldra. He's accompanied by taciturn Prison Guard Rick Sweeney, who's nearing retirement and allows Lane a reasonable amount of latitude to explore the farm and surrounding area. Matilda was last known to have been an employee of the charismatic Reggie Karpathy, father of the present owner, Sam.

Lane and Sweeney's arrival at Karpathy Farm coincides with the sudden death in a motor vehicle crash of one of the young farm hands, Hannah. Lane immediately begins questioning the lead-up to and circumstances of her death, especially in light of the disappearances of several other young workers from the farm in the years since Matilda Carver vanished. He's left reeling when he recognises one of his fellow workers as Mina McCreery, an important character from Wake, living at the farm under the pseudonym Deana. Lane's prohibited from making contact with Mina, following the events of Wake, and is nervous about initiating discussion as to what she's doing there. However, his concerns are quickly dispelled and they join forces to uncover clues as to the whereabouts of the missing persons they're both investigating.

While most of the farm's residents seem perfectly content with their simple lives on the land, Lane is concerned by cult-like features in the farm's running. While he's assured that residents are free to leave if they want to, the farm's isolation mean that few have contact with the outside world. Residents are encouraged to give away sentimental items tied to their previous lives, aren't paid directly for their labour and live in spartan conditions. Some of the longer-standing residents are starting to become restless however, feeling that the community has lost its cohesiveness since the death of Reggie Karpathy the previous year. When an unseen adversary attempts to asphyxiate Lane in a greenhouse and poison Mina with hallucinogenic mushrooms, they realise that they must be getting perilously close to the truth about Karpathy farm.

Events hurtle towards a dramatic denouement, with a bushfire threatening the farm and its surrounds, allowing Lane to identify the villain, rescue another victim from the brink of death and solve the mystery of the whereabouts of Matilda and the other missing farm workers. As the novel reaches its conclusion, Lane is contemplating his future on the outside.

Vanish is a cleverly-plotted and well-paced mystery thriller, featuring a sympathetic main character and a cast of beguiling supporting characters. There's plenty of lurking malice and foreshadowing, suspicious behaviour aplenty, and a dramatically satisfying resolution. I'd recommend Vanish and its series predecessors Wake and Ripper to readers who enjoy twisty character-driven mysteries set in regional locations.

My thanks to the author, Shelley Burr, publisher Hachette Australia & New Zealand, and NetGalley for the opportunity to read and review this title.