AustLit

"This is not a novel of the underworld, nor of hard-hitting, wise-cracking detectives. It is the story of ordinary, everyday people trying to live normally in the shadow of a menace they cannot understand.

Life was peaceful in the little town of Sutton in rural Tasmania, and attractive schoolmistress Noel Vicary looked forward with confident serenity to her future with her fiance, Dr. Tony Gray  - until the unexpected death of pretty, wanton Joy Davis.

Although Noel had scarcely known Joy, she learned, with growing dismay, that more than one of her friends had had cause to hate and fear the dead girl. Soon, Noel found herself in a web of conflicting loyalties. She had neither the desire nor any particular aptitude for the role of amateur detective, but her conviction that Joy had been murdered, plus her impulsive nature, led her deeper and deeper into the morass of terror and suspicion.

And as death struck again, and yet again, with apparent meaningless fury, horror and panic spread throughout the township, and Noel was unwillingly forced to realise that among the faces of her friends she must select the mask of the murderer. Even so, she was unprepared for the tragic truth when she stumbled, quite by accident, on the solution of the mystery, and realised, too late, that her knowledge might cost her her life."

-Publisher's blurb.