Cirrus@Austlit

'What happens when six artists go on residency in southern Spain? Sex, writers block, resentment and, finally, someone left for dead...' (Source: Author's Facebook page.)

'Melbourne, the spring of 1923.

'When reporter Edward Bain is found dead in his office at The Argus newspaper, Eleanor Jones realises that this is murder.

'Eleanor, no longer a nurse, now writes film reviews for the newspaper, but she still knows the signs of violent death. She also knows the mark that war can leave on the living; her brother, Andrew, continues to face daily battles with shell-shock.

'But instead of getting rest and quiet, Andrew's out with glamorous clairvoyant, Nadine Carrides, on the streets of Melbourne - streets that are turning ugly as the police call a strike and the city fills with lawless crowds. Could this looting and chaos be a smokescreen behind which the killer is unleashing a more personal anger? As potential witnesses are attacked, Elanor is drawn into the investigation, in an uneasy alliance with Inspector Pearce, a man who doesn't believe in coincidences.

'Then, an arrest is made for Bain's murder, and it would seem that the mystery has been solved.

'But Eleanor is aware that many carry secrets - secret losses, secret desires - and that some people are fiercely protective of such secrets.

'With events building to a dangerous conclusion at the Melbourne Cup ball, Eleanor will have to face events from her own past in order to bring a killer to justice.'

'Melbourne, 1919.

'Death upon death.

'Nurses returned from the Great War are once again risking their lives, this time putting themselves in the firing line of a deadly disease: the Spanish 'Flu.

'On the frontline is Sister Eleanor Jones. Her family torn by death and shell shock, Eleanor does what she can for the sick, among them the likeable Jimmy Cotton, in the temporary hospital hastily set up in the grand Melbourne Exhibition Building.

'But there is one death that she cannot prevent.

'A death unlike all the others on the makeshift ward.

'Poison.

'Hiding behind the gauze masks designed to stop infection, someone is intent on adding to the death toll.

'When Jimmy Cotton disappears, Eleanor cannot help getting involved in the investigation. As she studies her fellow nurses, the orderlies, and the patients, she finds that the war has left people damaged in many ways.

'She is not the only one with an unbearable, secret grief.

'The War has taken so many things from Eleanor, including her dream of becoming a writer. But perhaps she can turn her talent for the dramatic, her wit and her imagination, towards [sic] creating a trap to reveal a killer ...'

Source: Back cover blurb.