The Reckoning is the third book in Vikki Petraitis’ rural Australian procedural series which began with The Unbelieved. The series is set in a coastal community called Deception Bay, not too far from Melbourne, and centres around policewoman called Antigone Pollard. In The Unbelieved, Antigone retreated to Deception Bay and found herself confronted with drink spiking and sexually abused women. In the follow up, The Stolen, the main plot involved a missing baby. There was still a focus on misogyny and in particular consideration of societal and media victim-blaming tropes. So it is no surprise that The Reckoning carries on with these themes.
In The Reckoning’s cold open, two of the criminals from The Unbelieved are being released from prison and are soon once again bragging about their drink-spiking exploits. The action then moves to Australia Day and an event where some in town are welcoming the two back as returning heroes (many are boycotting the event for that reason). The event descends into chaos when there is a mass-poisoning (in a way that will be familiar now to many Australians). Antigone and her partner Wazza start to investigate but before too long they are side-tracked by a more urgent case – Antigone’s mother and grandmother being held hostage.
As with the other two books in this series, there is plenty more going on both crime-wise and in Antigone Pollard’s life. This includes a domestic violence victim whose husband has died of a heart attack, Antigone’s police officer ex-partner coming in to manage the siege and her adjustment to dealing with the family revelations of the previous book. But much of it is of a piece – Petraitis still focusses very much on issues of domestic violence and coercive control and misogyny in the community and in the media. Once again she manages to work some disturbing domestic violence and sexual abuse statistics into the narrative but also pokes fun at some ridiculous stereotypes at the expense of the slightly caricatured police psychiatrist Dr Bailey.
Petraitis plays up the misogyny of the media with excerpts from a right-wing radio show which spends its time extolling the virtues of some very questionable characters, running down and belittling Antigone in particular and shutting down reasonable debate
The other major thread in The Reckoning is the rise of sovereign citizens in Australia. As Antigone observes:
Until this moment, my idea of sovereign citizens was the wispy-bearded American type of gun-toting, off-the-grid dwellers, not farmers in Deception Bay.
Petraitis is not the first Australian crime author to explore this growing phenomenon and its link to Australia’s Covid response. Garry Disher has had sovereign citizens popping up in his Hirschhausen series and Catherine Jinks built a thriller around the idea in her most recent novel Panic.
Once again, the whole enterprise is ably anchored around Antigone Pollard. Still carrying a bit of baggage from her time in Melbourne but more firmly in place now in Deception Bay. She is a straight shooter who seems to have no fear, particularly when those she cares about are in danger. And she is once again ably supported by her ex-police dog companion Waffles.
The Reckoning feels like a conclusion to at least this part of the series. A number of ongoing plot strands are at least settled by the conclusion, including some aspects Anitgone’s personal life. While she clearly enjoys writing Antigone, even Petraitis might have to admit that there is only so much that can happen in a small town like Deception Bay. There is a hint as to how this series might evolve if Petraitis decides to stick with Antigone Pollard, but either way it is exciting to consider where Petraitis might go next.
For fans of this series the TV adaptation of The Unbelieved, for some reason called Dustfall, is being released in October 2026.
The Reckoning by Vikki Petraitis
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