ROCKHOUND (BOOK TWO)

Australia's past is littered with the broken dreams – and sometimes the bones – of fortune hunters digging for treasure, gambling everything on one big win.

Young Australian journalist Annie Bryce is on the run from a killer who wants her dead before she can testify in a murder trial in England: this is the trial of the killer's father, and Annie is a key witness for the prosecution. After one narrow escape too many, she and photographer Steve are hustled out of town for their own protection.

Lying low on the gemfields of northern Australia they meet a different sort of gambler – the rockhounds who burrow underground for the world-class sapphires of Australia, intent on unearthing a gem that could equal the stunning local stone now sitting on the President's desk in the Oval Office of the White House.

Even here Annie's nose for mystery is twitching. In this isolated, eccentric community she soon realises that nothing is as it seems. Probing the secrets of a long-dead wheeler and dealer in sapphires, she once again discovers that there's no escaping the dark shadows of the past. All the while the killer hunting her down is getting ever closer to her, leaving a trail of death and destruction in his wake ...

Rockhound is the second novel in the Annie Bryce mystery series.

The critics' response: In a word – compelling! (Gold Coast Bulletin)