AustLit

'It’s 1947 and in the remote South Australian town, Honiton, a skeleton is discovered encrusted in salt in the middle of the dry, Lake Beauty, that borders the town. Newly arrived sergeant, Sam, and his wife, ex-policewoman, Annie, have to battle local prejudices, post war domestic tensions, pressure from senior police and a lake that occasionally fills and then dries to a thick salt crust, to solve the mystery.

'Lake Beauty reveals a world that no longer exists – one where rural societies were independent and in self-sustaining. Where people shared phone lines, printed their own newspapers, baked their own bread, made their own furniture and where the GP and the local hospital were the only source of medical treatment and expertise. It was also a world in which damaged men returned from war to find their community had changed while they were away and their old attitudes challenged.' (Publication summary)