Clementine Jones

All it took was a lapse... a momentary lapse... to bring Clementine Jones' world crashing down. Now she's living like a hermit in small-town Katinga, coaching the local footy club. She's supposed to be lying low, but here she is, with her team on the cusp of their first premiership in fifty years-and the whole bloody town counting on her, cheering her on. So why the hell would her star player quit on the eve of the finals? It's a question she wishes she'd left alone. Others are starting to ask questions too-questions about her. Clem's not the only one with a secret, and as tension builds, the dark violence just below the town's surface threatens to erupt. Pretty soon there'll be nowhere left for Clem to hide.

Looking out over an ebb tide from the back verandah was like watching God paint stripes...Disgraced former lawyer Clementine Jones is on the shores of paradise-Queensland's Great Sandy Straits-trying to outrun her past. Bored with her house-sitting gig, she becomes a reluctant recruit to the local environmental group, campaigning to save an endangered turtle as developers close in. Then a body is found at the base of a quarry, and Clem's world is turned upside down. The police say suicide. Clem's convinced it was murder. She's also knows she's the only one interested in tracking down the killer. Well, the only one apart from her friend Torrens, ex-con and reformed standover man. And he's got his own fight on his hands.