In 1944, in the outer-Melbourne suburb of Nunawading, the brutal deaths of a family herald the return of a long-forgotten cult. A man named Anthony Prescott has declared himself the Messiah, and has promised his followers immortality. There are those who believe him - and who are ready to kill in his name.
Inspector Titus Lambert of the Melbourne Homicide unit, whose detectives are over-stretched, requests the discreet assistance of Helen Lord and Joe Sable: once members of his unit, now private inquiry agents. The investigation is more perilous than any of them realise, and will have tragic consequences.
Will Power has returned from the Northern Territory shaken, stirred and generally discombobulated. It is late 1942 and demeaningly enough, he finds himself playing a pantomime dame. If only this was his only worry... As his great hero, Shakespeare, once noted, 'When sorrows come, they come not single spies, but in battalions.' Can Will finally overcome his tendency to be the living embodiment of Murphy's Law?
Failed Shakespearean actor and would-be private detective William Power returns to Melbourne in this wry sequel that re-creates the tension and fear of wartime Australia. Bloodied and broken but somehow unbowed, he arrives in a town struggling under war-rationing and full of cocky American soldiers and lands squarely in the bosom of his childhood home in Carlton, now dominated by his sister-in-law, the odious Darlene. But even Will's contempt is tempered when, in the early hours of the morning, Darlene is kidnapped and Will finds his mother's kitchen splattered with blood and scattered with broken crockery. Soon, murder and the fate of the nation are added to the mix, and Will realizes that he is the only one who can solve the case.
It's 1942, and war is raging in Europe and in the Pacific. The Japanese army is on Australia's doorstep, and the small coastal Queensland town of Maryborough is on full war footing. What they are not prepared for is the arrival in the town of a troupe of incompetent actors whose unjustifiably self-confident leader, William Power, is determined to bring his daring production of Titus Andronicus to the barbarians of rural Australia. Unfortunately for the Power Players, the only gift William Power has is a capacity for being in the wrong place at the wrong time. When a young woman goes missing and is found floating dead in the town's water supply, Power becomes the prime suspect in her murder. With every misplaced step he takes, he becomes more and more embroiled in a series of crimes which baffle the police and horrify the locals. Having no confidence in the constabulary, Power decides that his only option is to solve the crimes himself. His acting skills are not good; his detection skills are worse. As he stumbles towards a solution and as his injuries mount up, he never wavers in his belief that he alone can bring the killer to justice. But, with every day that passes, he tightens the noose around his own neck until, on the night of a violent storm, everything changes. And not for the better.
