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 a little 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.

Summer on the Peninsula. The heat's ramping up, the usual holiday madness building. Inspector Hal Challis is already recycling his shower water and starting to dread Christmas.

But this year there's something more. Women abducted and murdered on the Old Highway. A pall of fear over the scorched paddocks. The media are demanding answers—and Challis's sleepy beat is set to explode.

Garry Disher has published almost fifty titles—fiction, children's books, anthologies, textbooks, the Wyatt thrillers and the Peninsula Crimes series. He has won numerous awards, including the German Crime Prize (twice) and two Ned Kelly Best Crime novel awards, for Chain of Evidence (2007) and Wyatt (2010). Garry lives on Victoria's Mornington Peninsula.

'An intelligent, atmospheric police procedural...Fans of such gritty yet cerebral crime novelists such as Ian Rankin and Jack Harvey should be well pleased.' Publishers Weekly

'Disher has been described as Australia's answer to Michael Connelly or Ian Rankin and there is no doubting his expertise at carving out elegant page-turners with a social conscience.' West Australian