Cirrus@Austlit

'Three couples, friends since high school, rent a luxurious house in the mountains for an unplugged weekend of drinking and bushwalking. No internet, no phones, no stress. On the first night, the topic of partner-swapping comes up. It's a joke - at first.

Not everyone is keen, but an agreement is made. The lights will be turned out. The three women will go into the three bedrooms. The three men will each pick a room at random. It won't be awkward later, because they won't know who they've slept with - or can pretend they don't.

'But when the lights come back on, one of the men is dead. No one will admit to being his partner. The phones still don't work, and now the car key is missing. They're stranded. And the killer is just getting started ...' (Publication summary)

'On a hot November morning, the first body lies in a cattle trough . . . It will be another two hours before rigor mortis sets in. Until then, the slim fingers will float below the water's surface, gently bobbing, beckoning Detective Giles to come and find her.

'Detective Rebecca Giles has just finished interviewing aging petty crim Sticky Pete over a spate of break-and-enters when a disturbing new report comes in. Twelve-year-old Kayleen Ellis has vanished from her home in Muswellbrook in the Upper Hunter Valley.

'Hours later, Giles is a local hero, having apparently solved Kayleen's case and the spate of jewellery thefts.

'Yet the hangover from her celebrations has barely kicked in when the body of young jillaroo Ava Emmerson is discovered in gruesome circumstances on a nearby farm.

'Giles is convinced the link between all three cases lies in the town's tragic history, perhaps even in her own mother's mysterious drowning thirty years ago.

'In a place where nothing much changes, suddenly a great deal is happening - and Giles's life and career are now on the line.' (Publication summary)