Cirrus@Austlit

'Introducing Stella Hardy, a wise-cracking social worker with a thirst for social justice, good laksa, and alcohol.

'Stella’s phone rings. A young African boy, the son of one of her clients, has been murdered in a dingy back alley. Stella, in her forties and running low on empathy, heads into the night to comfort the grieving mother. But when she gets there, she makes a discovery that has the potential to uncover something terrible from her past - something she thought she’d gotten away with.

'Then Stella’s neighbour Tania mysteriously vanishes. When Stella learns that Tania is the heir to a billion-dollar mining empire, Stella realises her glamorous young friend might have had more up her sleeve than just a perfectly toned arm.

'Who is behind her disappearance?

'Enlisting the help of her friend, Senior Constable Phuong Nguyen, Stella’s investigation draws her further and further into a dark world of drug dealers, sociopaths, and killers, such as the enigmatic Mr Funsail, whose name makes even hardened criminals run for cover.

'One thing is clear: Stella needs to find answers fast - before the people she’s looking for find her instead.'

Source: Publisher's blurb.

'On a stormy Halloween night, Stella gets a call from her best friend, Detective Phuong Nguyen. Phuong has a problem. Or rather her lover, Bruce Copeland, does. Copeland, fearing being falsely accused of involvement in a police corruption investigation, knows that only one person can prove that he is the only innocent cop in his unit - but this saviour-to-be has gone missing. So it's up to Stella to find the missing man, and convince him to testify for Copeland. Easy. Meanwhile, Stella finds herself drawn to the mysterious Cuong - Phuong's eccentric cousin - a gambling addict with a crippling obsession with the supernatural. Cuong has been mixing with some unsavoury types at the race track, and with the Melbourne Cup only days away, Cuong is desperate to find the money he owes - before his ghosts come back to haunt him. When the fascinators and fake tan are on, the big money is out and the horses are off - and the race for Stella to get her man to a police station, and Cuong out of the country alive, is on. Easy? Too Easy.' (Publication summary)

'All Stella Hardy wants is a romantic country getaway with her artist boyfriend, Brophy. Instead, she must head to the Athol Goldwater Agricultural Prison (aka Arsehole Bogwater) to visit her jailbird brother, Ben, and sort out some 'urgent' family paperwork. But Stella has barely set foot in the prison when a prisoner, Joe Phelan, is found dead.

'Before she knows it, Stella finds herself tasked, against her will, with investigating Joe's suspicious death away from the eyes of police, including her best friend, Detective Phuong Nguyen. Her old nemesis Minister for Justice Marcus Pugh is pressuring her from above to save his election-year bacon, and Joe's old friend and former gang member, Percy Brash, is providing a much more chilling form of pressure from below, promising to reduce her to mush and bone fragments if she doesn't give him the name of Joe's killer, and soon.

'As the clock counts down, Stella becomes embroiled in a story of corruption, conspiracy, and high-tech cattle-wrangling, all while trying to manage her brother's pregnant girlfriend, Loretta, get to the bottom of Brophy's increasingly strange behaviour, and evade the murderous intentions of a shadowy mercenary. And then things get really crazy. It's Stella's last hurrah, and she's going out with a bang.' (Publication summary)