The Build Up

"Jimmy has this feeling he's often had here – that somebody, or something, is watching him. He breathes in deep, filling his lungs, and dives, his eyes open. The water is surprisingly clear, the tree trunk disappears into the depths. He follows the line down, his gunked-up lungs burning – but keeps going. Another big kick. He pulls at the line and it floats up. An anemone, he thinks. A tangle of tentacles. But he knows that can't be right, this is fresh not salt water. It's hair. Then a face. Hollow eyes. A lipless grimace. Her body naked. And in her, a white-handled knife."

For Detective Dusty Buchanon, a female cop in the very male world of the Northern Territory Police Force, it always pays to expect the unexpected. When the body of a young Thai prostitute is found in a billabong near a camp of disaffected Vietnam Veterans, Dusty knows this is what she's been looking for – a spectacular case to get her back on top after the debacle of an infamous British backpacker murder trial that almost destroyed her career.

But when the body disappears and her colleagues turn against her, Dusty gets help from an unlikely source: a handsome German bird-watcher holidaying in the Northern Territory, who just happens to be a cop. And soon, the case becomes much more than just another step on her career ladder...

Set against Darwin's hustling, exotic melting pot of people and cultures, Phillip Gwynne has written a truly page-turning crime thriller with an unforgettable hero.