A pair of hit men working a job for a meth kingpin have a very bad day, and the resulting bushfire draws attention to a drug lab and two burned bodies in a Mercedes. With meth-related crime on the rise, interdepartmental tensions mount, and Inspector Hall Challis soon finds himself fighting to keep control of his case. Meanwhile, Sergeant Ellen Destry is hunting for a serial rapist who is extremely adept at not leaving clues--

"The young detectives think Alan Auhl is washed up, but that doesn't faze him. He does things his own way--and gets results. He still lives with his ex-wife, off and on, in a big house full of random boarders and hard-luck stories. And he's still a cop, even though he retired from Homicide some years ago. He works cold cases now. Like the death of John Elphick--his daughters are still convinced he was murdered; the coroner is not so sure. Or the skeleton...

A young girl has been abducted on Australia's Mornington Peninsula and Sergeant Ellen Destry takes the case in Inspector Hal Challis' absence.

From the two-time winner of the Ned Kelly Award and the German Crime Fiction Critix Circle Prize
A missing two-year-old girl, an unidentified drowning victim, arson, and the threat of murder bring Homicide Squad Inspector Hal Challis of the Mornington Peninsula Police Force and his staff to Bushrangers Bay, an Australian seaside resort outside Melbourne. Allis not idyllic in this resort community—far from it. Cars are stolen and torched;...

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...