It was as easy as that. Inspired, really. That first one, last week, she hadn’t been a challenge at all. Drunk, half-drugged, hitchhiking, she’d been too easy. At least he’d got to use his head a little tonight. His headlights probed the darkness as he carried her away, high above the rottenness that was always there under the light of the sun.

Summer on the Peninsula. The heat’s ramping up, the usual holiday madness building. D.I. Hal Challis is already recycling his shower water and starting to dread Christmas.

But this year there’s something more. Women abducted and murdered on the Old Highway. A pall of fear over the scorched paddocks. The media are demanding answers—and Challis’s sleepy beat is set to explode.