Another of the long listed nominees for this year's Neds is Alex Palmer's second book - The Tattooed Man
"The dead sat at the table like those who are about to eat but never will. Dinner plants set before them contained a meal left untouched. Their rested mouths, their closed eyes, the unshifting weight of their bodies, had a finality beyond waking."
Paul Harrigan is a top cop who has survived the corruption and political manoeuvrings of the NSW Police. So far ...
Grace Riordan has left the Service and now works in the shadowy world of undercover intelligence – so she and Harrigan can't talk about work much. Harrigan is called to a grisly murder scene in Sydney's wealthy north: four dinner guests are seated around the dinner table – all dead. One of them a Senator's ex–wife; one of them a missing corrupt NSW detective. And the mummified condition of the detective's body – identified by a distinctive tattoo – suggests he has been dead for quite some time ...
While Harrigan is facing the demons of his past, Grace is drawn into the investigation through some very unofficial enquiries of her own. Enquiries which will lead to a flashpoint neither can predict.Politics, corruption, big business, espionage and illicit technology ...