Barry Maitland

Detective Sergeant Harry Belltree, back on the job after a near-fatal confrontation with corrupt colleagues, has become a departmental embarrassment. He can't and doesn't want to return to his post with the Sydney Police Department. Instead, he accepts a post far away from Sydney and attempts to build a quiet life in Newcastle, Australia. But that quiet life quickly eludes him. A body's been found buried just offshore on Ash Island and that one body...

"DCI David Brock and DI Kathy Kolla, of Scotland Yard, find themselves pulled into a case of murder, a mysterious death among the houseboats that line the canals around greater London DI Kathy Kolla of Scotland Yard is called in as a matter of course by the local Paddington police when a woman turns up dead in what appears to be an accident. On her houseboat, Vicky Hawks is found by one of her neighbors having apparently succumbed to carbon monoxide...