In 1915, two days before being sent to fight in WWI, Jack O'Rourke dived into Sydney Harbour to save a drowning stranger, Samuel Lomond. Four years later, battle-scarred and weary, Jack returns home only to discover that Samuel has been brutally murdered – and that he's been left his rural property, Booroomba.

When Jack arrives in Warrawolong, a small town near Eden, to claim his inheritance, he finds only hostile stares. Suspected of the crime by the townsfolk and local constable, Jack launches his own investigation into Samuel's death – and soon discovers the townsfolk aren't as innocent as they seem.

Now Jack must expose a killer hiding in plain sight – before he becomes the next victim of a decades-old conspiracy.

A neighbour coveting water rights, a struggling newspaper proprietor, a vengeful labourer, a secret affair and two Russian émigrés lead Jack right to the heart of the crime. A small town hides big secrets, in A L Booth's deeply evocative historical whodunnit.