A chaplain at an exclusive private school is attacked and left for dead during Schoolies Week on the Mornington Peninsula, at a time when police resources are stretched to the limit. Hal Challis and Ellen Destry dig into his life and find links to a white-supremacist group and an egomaniacal politician on an upward trajectory.

But are these really the reasons he was targeted? As investigations continue, a resourceful and vengeful local woman plots an attack on the young man who raped her the previous summer and an obsessive architect stalks his council-worker wife. The ways in which these seemingly unconnected events intertwine are the basis for this sterling police drama from one of Australia’s most acclaimed authors.