Wakool Crossing: a modern-day investigation into the mysterious de

In November 1916, Hazel Hood, the beautiful 18-year-old daughter of a Riverina grazier, went to a local dance and never came home. Exploring Hazel's mysterious disappearance and the unexplained discovery of her body a week later in the Wakool river, this study leads readers through one man's journey to solve the puzzle of her death almost 100 years after the fact. As a child in the Mallee in the 1950s, author Mike Richards was told the story of Hazel Hood’s tragic disappearance by his grandmother, Hazel’s elder sister, who firmly believed she had been murdered. This investigative account unravels the mystery of the young woman's disappearance from the pioneer settlement of Wakool Crossing, near the Victoria–New South Wales border, and reveals the truth about what happened to Hazel Hood.

Mike Richards is a former journalist, management consultant, political scientist, and senior media executive. He is also the former deputy CEO of the Melbourne Age and a former political adviser and chief of staff for Australian Labor Party leaders. He is the author of the bestselling biography The Hanged Man: the Life and Death of Ronald Ryan and a recipient of the Ned Kelly Award for true crime.