Author(s): Peter Corris

Crime Thriller Mystery

Stripped of his private detective licence and devastated by the murder of his partner Lily Truscott, Cliff Hardy travels to the US to help Lily's brother's tilt for a world boxing title. In San Diego he suffers a heart attack and undergoes a quadruple bypass. He meets nurse Margaret McKinley, an expatriate Australian, who is concerned about the disappearance in Sydney of her father, renowned geologist Henry McKinley. Hardy undertakes to investigate. It turns out that McKinley had discovered a way to tap into the massive Sydney basin aquifer, a possible solution to the city's water problems. Hardy confronts an old enemy and contending forces bent on exploiting the discovery and prepared to kill for it.