Cato Kwong

The world is in economic meltdown, but a mining town on the edge of nowhere is booming. With the town's population exploding, it's easy enough to hide a crime-or even a dirty past. Banished to the stock squad after the fallout from a police frame-up, Detective Senior Sergeant Cato Kwong is brought in from the cold to solve the case of a torso washed up on the wild shores of the Great Southern Ocean. When Kwong's investigation lifts the lid on the exploitation of migrant workers and disturbs an even darker criminal mind, the fallen cop faces powerful opposition. Drawing in globally relevant issues, such as immigration, racism, and the economic crisis, this is a humorous and tightly plotted crime narrative.

Cato Kwong is back. Back in Boom Town and back on a real case-the unsolved mystery of a missing 15-year-old girl. But it's midsummer in the city of millionaires and it's not just the heat that stinks. A pig corpse, peppered with nails, is uncovered in a shallow grave and a body, with its throat cut, turns up in the local nightclub. As a series of blunders by Cato's colleague brings the squad under intense scrutiny, Cato's own sympathy for a suspect threatens to derail his case and his career.

Alan Carter is a crime writer who has been shortlisted for the prestigious CWA Debut Dagger Award, was runner-up in the Penguin Crime Writing Competition, and won the Ned Kelly Award for Best First Fiction. He is the author of the Cato Kwong series, which includes Prime Cut and Getting Warmer.

Detective, Philip Cato' Kwong is, investigating the death of a retiree found hacked to pieces in his suburban home. The trail leads to Timor-Leste, with its recent blood-soaked history. There, he reunites with an old frenemy, the spook Rory Driscoll who, in Cato's experience, has always occupied a hazy moral terrain. Resourceful, multilingual, and hard as nails, Rory has been the government's go-to guy, when things get sticky in the Asia-Pacific. Now Rory wants out. But first, he's needed to chaperone a motley group of whistleblowers with a price on their heads. And, there's one on his, too.