Jon Cleary's latest novel sees Scobie Malone crossing swords with a number of old adversaries following the assassination of a leading politician on the steps of the Olympic Tower. As the Sydney 2000 Games draw ever closer, the city's great and good assemble to celebrate the opening of the Olympic Tower. But the gala turns grisly when the State Premier is shot by a sniper. In his twenty years at the head of the Labor Party, The Dutchman had made any number of enemies. Rivals claimed he'd reached his sell-by date and should retire. But who wanted him out of the way badly enough to hire a hitman? And with ruthless casino boss Jack Aldwych and his son flanking the Premier at the time of the shooting, who can be sure that the hitman found his true target? As if politcal skulduggery and high-stakes gambling weren't enough to contend with, Scobie finds that his daughter Maureen, now a tabloid-TV journalist, is working the same case -- with terrifying consequences.

'The Malone stories come alive through their setting... Cleary's writing is seamless and his plots imaginative and mature' Carl Hiaasen, Miami Herald Cleary is a national literary institution... If Australia has a crime writer who deserves to be spoken of in the same breath as Ed McBain, Ruth Rendell, and P.D James, then it is Cleary. Stuart Coupe, Sydney Morning Herald

Jon Cleary has been writing for sixty years. His novels have received world-wide acclaim and sold over 8 million copies. The author of fifty novels, including the famous SUNDOWNERS, his most recent stories have featured likeable family man Detective Scobie Malone. In 1995 he was awarded the Inaugural Ned Kelly Award for his lifetime contribution to crime fiction in Australia.