Sydney, 1980s: Belle Fitzgerald, young, rich and spirited, lives in Kings Cross, the city's bohemian heart. When she learns of plans to demolish her street and evict its residents, she commits to fighting the development, even though this brings her up against the Cross's crime lords and their servants, the notoriously corrupt local cops. Recklessly, dangerously, against her better judgment, she embarks on a passionate affair with one of those cops, Sergeant Stanton Rose.Then Belle goes missing. Her disappearance becomes one of the nation's great mysteries.Sydney, today: Stanton Rose, retired, is an Australian icon, celebrated for his undercover work in the Cross. Jackie Rose, his daughter, has followed in his footsteps. She's a homicide detective, uncompromising and ambitious.When Belle Fitzgerald's bones are discovered, Jackie is given the very cold and very public case. This will be her moment to shine. But what she uncovers threatens to turn her life...

Sydney, Australia: The body of a young woman is found in Chinatown. She's been beaten, tortured - and tattooed with the image of a sun. Called to the scene, Sergeant Jackie Rose asks herself whether this was a drug murder, or something else. But before her investigation can get under way, she is ordered to hand the case over to the Australian Federal Police. Cape Town, South Africa: A local girl recruited to study in Australia has fallen off the radar. Veteran detective Schalk Lourens - recently suspended from duty - has already made plans to visit his daughter in Sydney, with emigration in mind. He decides to search for the missing girl while he is there.Jackie and Schalk join forces, exposing a trail of corruption and crime stretching from the foreshore of the city's iconic harbour, back to South Africa and across the world. Together the pair must navigate a minefield of deceit and manipulation set by an enemy more powerful and depraved than they can...

What if justice isn't enough? Schalk Lourens got out his phone and started filming, something Pieterse taught him years ago. Keep a record. Do it yourself, boykie, every time. That way you can be sure. Cover your arse. Don't trust any of them. Schalk began with Pieterse himself, what was left of him. Cape Town, South Africa. Retired police chief Piet Pieterse has been murdered, necklaced in fact. A tyre placed round his neck, doused with petrol, set alight. An execution from the apartheid era and one generally confined to collaborators. Who would target Pieterse this way, and why now?Veteran copy Schalk Lourens is trying to forget the past. But Pieterse was his old boss and when Schalk is put on the case, he finds the past has a way of infecting the present.Meanwhile, it's an election year. People are pinning their hopes on charismatic ANC candidate Gideon Radebe but there's opposition and in this volatile country,...