Four years later, Malone finds and arrests Ron Glaze in a bush town, but the man insists he is innocent even as the evidence makes his conviction in court a cinch. The young prosecutor, Tim Pierpont, is a well-respected community member, too, which makes for an easy sentence of Glaze's guilt.
Meanwhile, the capital city of Sydney is dealing with the kidnapping of a child model, Lucybelle Vanheusen, and her hysterical family. Malone doesn't take the case seriously until a body turns up—and only then does Malone realize that Lucybelle's family life does not at all resemble his own caring household. Finally, a witness comes forward in the Glaze case and implicates a new suspect—and the deeper that Malone digs into both murders, the more he wishes he had not.
Jon Cleary (1917–2010) was an Australian writer and novelist. He wrote numerous books, including The High Commissioner, the first of a long series of popular detective novels featuring Sydney police inspector Scobie Malone. Several of his works have been adapted for television and film.