Peter Temple wins the 2010 Miles Franklin Award

At the close of a long day, Inspector Stephen Villani stands in the bathroom of a luxury apartment high above the city.  In the glass bath, a young woman lies dead.

Villani's job as head of the Victoria Police Homicide Squad is bathed in blood and sorrow.  His life is his work.  It is his identity, his calling, his touchstone.  But now, over a few sweltering summer days, as fires burn across the state and his superiors and colleagues scheme and jostle, he finds all the certainties of his life are crumbling.