The fire wasn’t an accident.
It was a message.
When investigative journalist Sarah Hart arrives in Perth, the city feels too calm, too rehearsed. Glass towers reflect sunlight, the river lies obedient, and everyone seems committed to not asking questions. But silence has weight, and Sarah has learned to listen to it. A tanker burns on the Swan River. Cargo moves under civilian cover. Files surface that were never meant to be read.
As authorities rush to contain the narrative, Sarah follows what others are paid to ignore... patterns buried in logistics, decisions made far from the fire, and systems designed to make catastrophe look procedural. Each answer leads deeper into a network that thrives on invisibility, where truth is managed long before it’s denied. From the riverfront to underground corridors, from port security to offshore shells, Inferno – Perth is a thriller about modern power: how disasters are engineered, how witnesses are silenced, and how quickly order reasserts itself after violence.
Because the most dangerous fires aren’t the ones you see… they’re the ones already moving. Silence can save you. Or it can burn everything.
John Berry was born in Rhodesia. He lived there for six years and then emigrated to Durban, South Africa. He went to Marist Brothers College. After matriculation, he did national service as a paratrooper and fought in the Angolan war in 1975. He traveled extensively, lived in England for two years, then emigrated to Brisbane, Australia. He spends his time researching and writing fiction stories.