Cirrus@Austlit

'Young detective Nicholas Troy is basically a good man, for whom working in homicide is the highest form of police work. But when a woman falls from the construction site for the world's tallest skyscraper, the tortured course of the murder investigation that follows threatens his vocation.

Hampered by politicised managers and incompetent colleagues, Troy fights his way through worlds of wealth and poverty, people-smuggling and prostitution. He has always seen Sydney as a city of sharks, a place where predators lurk beneath the glittering surface. Now he uncovers networks of crime and corruption that pollute the city, reaching into the police force itself.

Finally, the shadowy predator Troy has been chasing turns and comes for him, putting his family at risk. Forced to defend himself with actions he would never have considered before, Troy confronts a moral abyss. He realises it's a long way down.' (from the publisher's website)

'A man has come off the Manly Ferry and Detective Nicholas Troy investigates but he is distracted. His mentor Father Luke Corelli has been accused of abusing a young boy years before. To Troy's dismay he's not denying the charge and nor is the Catholic Church trying to defend his name. Troy's ambitious and attractive colleague Susan Conti is newly single and his eccentric boss, Jon McIver, would rather be singing the blues than following leads.

'In another part of Sydney, successful bureaucrat Leila Scott's mother has bone cancer. She asks for help to die and Leila seeks the advice of a voluntary euthanasia group. She finds herself caught up in a police investigation when Troy comes across members of the group and begins to suspect voluntary euthanasia is being used as an excuse for something much darker. As Troy digs deeper into both cases, feeling instinctively that they are somehow connected, he realises that morality and the law might not always follow the same path. And that there is no such thing as a simple death.' (From the publisher's website.)