COULD ONE WOMAN STOP POLITICAL CORRUPTION AND START TRUE DEMOCRACY? Feisty Jane Kenwood is a strong woman councillor and popular public figure in Alexandra City, Southland. Her debating skills are legendary. She is independent and vociferously opposed to a megacasino proposal. When the Council becomes hung, her vote is critical. She disappears and her colleague and friend, Dr Phillip Keane, a forensic scientist, investigates with the help of her zany friends and a novel forensic method. Will they find her alive? Will she recover? Will they be able to stop the casino? Will she be able to transform the city’s fossilised partisan government into the participative democracy she wants? This is crime fiction that will leave you feeling empowered. PRESUMED DEAD Reviewer: Phil Heywood, former Associate Professor and Head of Urban and Regional Planning in the Queensland University of Technology and President of the Queensland Division of the Planning Institute of Australia. He was installed in the National Institute’s Hall of Fame in 2013. “(The book is written with) a great command of narrative dialogue, just enough occasional poetic word use to keep the reader alert and a convincing grasp of the way that individual and social events are tied up to produce a convincing and interesting storyline on topics of currently seething public interest, including over-development of coastlines, political corruption and the roles of individuals and the media within contemporary society.