St Kilda Blues

Book excerpt: Selected for State Library of Victoria's Summer Read Programme 2014-2015 Bookworld Top 10 Crime & Thriller Books of 2014 'This is a terrific read with great plot twists, complex characters and a menacing atmosphere.' Sarina Gale, Books + Publishing, March 2014 It’s 1967, the summer of love, and in swinging Melbourne Detective Sergeant Charlie Berlin has been hauled out of exile in the Fraud Squad to investigate the disappearance of a teenage girl, the daughter of a powerful and politically connected property developer. As Berlin’s inquiries uncover more missing girls he gets an uneasy feeling he may be dealing with the city’s first serial killer. Berlin's investigation leads him through inner-city discotheques, hip photographic studios, the emerging drug culture and into the seedy back streets of St Kilda. The investigation also brings up ghosts of Berlin's past as a bomber pilot and POW in Europe and disturbing memories of the casual murder of a young woman he witnessed on a snow-covered road in Poland in the war's dying days. As in war, some victories come at a terrible cost and Berlin will have to face an awful truth and endure an unimaginable loss before his investigation is over.