2014 Ned Kelly Awards

A new case for expat private investigator Jayne Keeney.

As Jayne and Rajiv holiday in Krabi, Jayne can't stop her mind straying to thoughts of the future: a successful business, perhaps even a honeymoon. Who would have thought she could be so content?

But then their tour guide's body is found floating in the shallows and no one can explain the marks around her neck. Jayne and Rajiv are pulled into a case that the police have already decided isn't one: a case that will pull at the seams of their fledgling relationships and lead Jayne into grave danger. 

When forensic pathologist Dr Anya Crichton finds a dead child in a toy box and a room covered in blood the answer is like nothing she has come across before. The post mortem reveals that the girl died from a deadly bacterial infection brought on by food poisoning. But does that mean there isn’t a murderer?

Anya was only meant to be in Tasmania for a conference and to visit her mother, but when more people fall sick, including her father’s cousin, Anya becomes intimately involved in the case. At the same time, her mother – with whom Anya has always had a difficult relationship ever since her little sister Miriam went missing thirty years ago - is acting strangely, talking about conspiracies and exhibiting classic signs of dementia.

As Anya deals with her increasingly paranoid, intractable mother, she is also racing to discover the source of the fatal bacterial infection before more people die. But Anya’s investigations into the close-knit Tasmanian agricultural community where the contaminated food originated soon put her in grave danger as someone tries to kill her. 

As the deaths pile up, Anya’s search leads her to an old murder case, and soon it becomes clear that her own family is closer to danger than ever before. But will Anya be able to discover the truth behind the poisoning and unmask the killer in time to save them, and herself?