AustLit

Helen Santos is an investigator with a criminal research centre in Melbourne, Australia. One February night she becomes involved in an horrific murder; a man, Jeremy Wilson has just been decapitated and his wife savagely beaten. Aided by the widow, Helen proceeds to find the killer. Unfortunately this individual is already dead ...

'Novelist Gregory Worthington flees to Malta, where he hopes to find sanctuary from his crumbling marriage and inspiration for his next novel. The inspiration arrives upon hearing of the village mystery of a missing child. This becomes the subject of his writing, but his investigations are fraught with difficulty. His romance with a local woman can either restore or ruin his career, but who is the unexpected female visitor? The village parish priest shows veiled antagonism towards him, which is countered by a friendship struck with a mysterious doctor. "Life is not a novel, Mr Worthington, in which everything is resolved by the last twenty pages," says the parish priest. But there are questions that must be answered, and Worthington determines to find the solutions before he leaves Malta.'

Source: Author's website (Sighted: 12/8/2010)