This is an exceptionally well-written story and an excellent read to boot.
Paperback: Paul Harrigan is a top cop who has survived the corruption and political manoeuvrings of the NSW Police. So far.
His partner Garce Riordan has left the Service and now works in the shadowy world of undercover intelligence - so she and Harrigan can't talk about work much.
Harrigan is called to a grisly murder scene in Sydney's wealthy north: four guests are seated around the dinner table - all dead. One of them a Senator's ex-wife; one of them a missing corrupt NSW detective. And the mummified condition of the detective's body - identified by a distinctive tattoo - suggests he has been dead for quite some time.
While Harrigan is facing the demons of his past, Grace is drawn into the investigation through some very unofficial enquiries of her own. Enquiries which will lead to a flashpoint neither can predict.
Politics, corruption, big business, espionage and illicit technology, Alex Palmer weaves them all into a heart-stopping race for the truth.
About the author: Alex Palmer is a Canberra-based novelist who took up writing full time when she was made redundant from the Australian Public Service. With her debut Blood Redemption (2002), she won the Ned Kelly Award for Best First Crime Novel and shared the Sisters in Crime Davitt Award for best crime novel by a woman with Gabrielle Lord. Her second novel in the Harrigan and Grace series, The Tattooed Man (2008), was the winner of the 2008 Canberra Critics Circle Award. The third book, The Labyrinth of Drowning, was published in 2009.
I purchased this book from Abbey's Bookshop in Sydney. It was priced at AUS$19.99.
Rating: 4/5
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