Garry Disher

"The young detectives think Alan Auhl is washed up, but that doesn't faze him. He does things his own way--and gets results. He still lives with his ex-wife, off and on, in a big house full of random boarders and hard-luck stories. And he's still a cop, even though he retired from Homicide some years ago. He works cold cases now. Like the death of John Elphick--his daughters are still convinced he was murdered; the coroner is not so sure. Or the skeleton...

A pair of hit men working a job for a meth kingpin have a very bad day, and the resulting bushfire draws attention to a drug lab and two burned bodies in a Mercedes. With meth-related crime on the rise, interdepartmental tensions mount, and Inspector Hall Challis soon finds himself fighting to keep control of his case. Meanwhile, Sergeant Ellen Destry is hunting for a serial rapist who is extremely adept at not leaving clues--

A modern western set in an isolated Australian bush town with a soaring crime rate, where a local constable with a troubled past must investigate the death of a teenage girl whose murder threatens to set the dusty streets ablaze.