Garry Disher is one of Australia's best-known novelists. He's published over forty books in a range of genres, including crime, children's books, and Australian history. His Wyatt crime series is also published in the US by Soho Crime. He lives on the Mornington Peninsula, southeast of Melbourne.

Meet Hal Challis, Detective for the Mornington Peninsula police force in Southeast Australia, in the first investigation in this prize-winning crime series

A serial killer is on the loose in a small coastal town near Melbourne, Australia. Detective Inspector Hal Challis and his team must apprehend him before he strikes again. But first, Challis has to contend with the editor of a local newspaper who undermines his investigation at every turn, and with his wife, who attempts to resurrect their marriage through long-distance phone calls from a sanitarium, where she has been committed for the past eight years for attempted murder—his.