Macleay’s Swallowtail: A Murder Mystery

The island state of Tasmania is a landscape of sublime beauty, with some of the greatest tracts of wilderness left on the planet, a lot of it classed as world heritage. It is sparsely populated, especially the western part, but in the central highlands it is still possible to purchase large tracts of bush, and live in solitude and retreat, if one should so wish. Sometimes it is a land of long boundaries and hidden lives. But inevitably reality, and humanity intrudes. This is the story of a death knock by a country policeman that begins an odyssey. It leads him to the mainland of Australia and the big smoke, a metropolitan frame of reference where crime seems rife and morality for sale. Sex and drugs are the currency of the night, and a turf war is spiraling out of control. A serial killer is stalking the city streets in the hours of darkness. The Tasmanian’s reluctant female partner tells him to trust no one. So he doesn’t, least of all himself