AustLit

'Is brilliant young film maker Carmel Wise the innocent victim of gangland violence or is she enmeshed in a pornography racket as the press and the police imply? Carmel's businessman father hires Cliff Hardy to find the real reason 'the video girl' was shot dead outside the Greenwich Apartments in Kings Cross.

'Hardy follows a trail which is broken but clear - houses and flats, with the power on and the rent paid, stand empty; photographs and other document lead to Lionel Darcy, owner of the Champagne Cabaret; banks and business houses will supply just enough information to keep Hardy warm.

'The tail takes him to the sunny perninsula, leafy Lane Cove and the industrial waterfront. Hardy finds that every question and every answer had to be paid for in pain and fear. nd to some questions there may be no answers at all...' (Publication summary)

'It's no secret that the people who hire Hardy have nowhere else to turn.

Take Lady Catherine Chatterton, widow of the eminent judge. She's desperate to hand down the mantle of her husband's legal reign (not to mention the money) to someone more deserving than her boozy daughter Bettina.

So she hires Hardy to find her missing grandson - a tall order considering the only evidence of the young man's existence came two years earlier from an ageing drunk. Funny thing - when Hardy finds that drunk there is a helpful photograph... and within the hour, the drunk is dead. Now Hardy's on a murder case.' (Publisher's blurb)