1990s

The 1990s appear as a historical reference in an account of a police officer beginning an assignment with the Sydney Metro Homicide Squad. The period is associated with the Ivan Milat backpacker murders and with the prospect of hearing stories from officers who had worked on the case; the book presents this connection as rumor, rather than confirming that any particular colleague did so.

Reference to the Ivan Milat Murders

At his new desk, the officer recalls hearing that someone in the squad had worked on the Ivan Milat backpacker murders in the 1990s. He hopes to meet colleagues and hear their accounts, approaching the assignment as an opportunity to encounter cases and experiences absent from his previous work in North Sydney, which he describes as repetitive.

Narrative Context

The decade functions as a point of historical reference, not as a specified setting for the novel’s central events. Its mention belongs to the officer’s first impressions of the new workplace: the claim about a colleague’s past experience is something he has heard, and his eagerness to seek out such stories characterizes his expectations as he arrives. The passage establishes no further chronology or confirmed connection between the squad and the historical case.