What does a pile of clothes left on a deserted beach tell you? It's a cold midwinter Monday. Seaweed and shells litter the flat expanse of sand. There is a light wind, the sea more disgruntled than choppy, the tide out. And there amongst it, the neat pile of clothes. Almost like a coded message waiting to be deciphered.'
Queenscliff, Victoria, 1951: A man has disappeared, leaving only a pile of neatly folded clothes on a beach. Missing, presumed drowned. But for Detective Sergeant Stephen Minter, newly emigrated from England, it's far from an open-and-shut case. Because this is no ordinary man. Harry Playford is a successful politician, a charming man who is a rising ministerial star, a possible contender for the top job, who leaves behind a beautiful wife - and a mistress. There could be a simple explanation. But, these murky days of the Cold War, in a time of rising mistrust and suspicion, spies and espionage, Stephen can't throw off his feeling that something's definitely not right. About the whole business.