Gemma Woodstock Series

The lead homicide investigator in a rural town, Detective Sergeant Gemma Woodstock is deeply unnerved when a high school classmate is found strangled, her body floating in a lake. And not just any classmate, but Rosalind Ryan, whose beauty and inscrutability exerted a magnetic pull on Smithson High School, first during Rosalind's student years and then again when she returned to teach drama. As much as Rosalind's life was a mystery to Gemma when they were students together, her death presents even more of a puzzle.

Detective Sergeant Gemma Woodstock finds herself lost and alone after a recent move to Melbourne. Her new workplace is a minefield, and Detective Sergeant Nick Fleet, the partner she has been assigned, is uncommunicative and often hostile. When a homeless man is murdered and Gemma is put on the case, she can't help feeling a connection with the victim and his lonely, isolated existence. Then when actor Sterling Wade is murdered in the middle of an action-packed shot, Gemma and Nick have to put aside their differences to unravel the mysteries surrounding the actor's life and death.

A car crash victim clings to life and is rushed to hospital but can't be saved. Hours later, the body is stolen from the morgue. No one knows who the dead woman was or why her body was taken. Detective Sergeant Gemma Woodstock is back in her hometown of Smithson on maternity leave when the bizarre incident occurs. She is intrigued by the case but reluctant to get involved, despite the urging of her journalist friend Candy Fyfe. But in the days after the body goes missing, the town is rocked by another shocking crime and Gemma can't resist joining the investigation