Cirrus@Austlit

"This is not a novel of the underworld, nor of hard-hitting, wise-cracking detectives. It is the story of ordinary, everyday people trying to live normally in the shadow of a menace they cannot understand.

Life was peaceful in the little town of Sutton in rural Tasmania, and attractive schoolmistress Noel Vicary looked forward with confident serenity to her future with her fiance, Dr. Tony Gray  - until the unexpected death of pretty, wanton Joy Davis.

Although Noel had scarcely known Joy, she learned, with growing dismay, that more than one of her friends had had cause to hate and fear the dead girl. Soon, Noel found herself in a web of conflicting loyalties. She had neither the desire nor any particular aptitude for the role of amateur detective, but her conviction that Joy had been murdered, plus her impulsive nature, led her deeper and deeper into the morass of terror and suspicion.

And as death struck again, and yet again, with apparent meaningless fury, horror and panic spread throughout the township, and Noel was unwillingly forced to realise that among the faces of her friends she must select the mask of the murderer. Even so, she was unprepared for the tragic truth when she stumbled, quite by accident, on the solution of the mystery, and realised, too late, that her knowledge might cost her her life."

-Publisher's blurb.

"Dr Tony Gray and his attractive wife, Noel, had looked forward to a well-earned holiday. No premonition warned them that Death was to be their constant travelling companion, following them with relentless persistence from busy city to peaceful countryside.

Trouble began in a Melbourne cafe, when Noel impulsively went to the assistance of an appealing young stranger with an embarrassing situation.Those few steps across the cafe floor led Noel out of her normal well-ordered world into the nightmare jungle of the Melbourne underworld, and her spontaneous act of helpfulness earned her the bitter enmity of one of that jungle's denizens.

Bewildered, a trifle alarmed, and more than a trifle annoyed by the unwelcome attentions they had drawn upon themselves, Noel and Tony doggedly tried to enjoy their holiday as planned but found themselves becoming more and more deeply involved in the activities of law breakers on the one hand and the police on the other.

A fascinating Australian setting."

-Publisher's blurb.

A murder takes place among a group of Australian tennis internationals, who are gathered at a luxury tennis benefit run by two brothers.