A Detective Inspector Challis Murder Mystery.
Winner of the German Crime Fiction Critics Award 2001 and shortlisted for the Ned Kelly Award, this taut, complex crime novel is being re-released to coincide with the publication of Disher's latest instalment of the Detective Inspector Hal Challis series, 'Kittyhawk Down'.
"It was as easy as that. Inspired, really. That first one, last week, she hadn't been a challenge at all. Drunk, half-drugged, hitchhiking, she'd been too easy. At least he'd got to use his head tonight. His headlights probed the darkness as he carried her away, high above the rottenness that was always there under the light of the sun."
It's December and the police of the sleepy Peninsular towns are preparing for the usual summer holiday madness. But this time, it's not just break-and-enters and joyriding kids. There's a killer on the Old Peninsular Highway and women alone aren't safe.
For Detective Inspector Hal Challis, his quiet place in the country is about to explode. The media is demanding to know what he's doing about the killer, his colleagues are either giving trouble or in it, and his beleaguered past has a way of never leaving him alone.
