Far North Queensland, 1985. Three men are murdered in the long grass. Each dies differently. And nobody knows why.

When three homeless men are found brutally murdered near Stubby Beach in the remote mining town of Weipa, Detective Sergeant Annette Mollison and her boss, Detective Senior Sergeant Dave O'Reilly, are sent north from Brisbane to investigate.

Waiting for them is a crime scene that makes little sense. One victim has had his throat cut. Another has been bludgeoned to death. The third has been shot. Three men. Three methods of murder. No obvious motive and almost nothing connecting the victims beyond the place where they died.

For Mollison, a sharp, determined investigator making her way in the overwhelmingly male Queensland police force of the 1980s, the case will become far more than another murder investigation. As she and O'Reilly are drawn deeper into Weipa and the isolated communities of Cape York, what first appears to be a baffling triple murder begins to expose something much darker.

But The Long Grass is more than a murder mystery. It is a story about damaged people, addiction, prejudice, violence and the choices that can shape an entire life. Against the heat, red dirt and vast isolation of Far North Queensland, the investigation forces both the police and those around them to confront an uncomfortable question: what if the person they're hunting doesn't believe he's a murderer at all, but a man with very good reasons for killing?

Atmospheric, character-driven and laced with distinctly Australian black humour, The Long Grass introduces Detective Sergeant Annette Mollison in the first novel of the series that bears her name.