AustLit

'The Whisky Flat firebug has capped a busy two years with his most impressive light-up yet, generating new peaks of fear and bitterness. A very credible rumor links the pest to a big city corporation, hired to scare residents off land targetted for redevelopment. As the blaze closes on Whisky Flat township, nine-year-old Donny O'Brien goes missing, purportedly abducted by the developer to make his parents part with a key parcel of land. But Donny's dog and his next-door neighbor, Miss Ethel Madden, also vanish, upsetting the popular theory and, as the fire spreads, becoming the focus of problems nobody has imagined.' (Publisher's blurb)