Phillipa Davenport drove past the rustic-looking bull-nosed verandah shopfronts and wondered if maybe she’d just travelled through some kind of time warp.

In the centre of the tree-lined main street was the usual epitaph to the town’s war dead that always made her pause and shake her head at the sheer number of young lives ended so wastefully, and at the other end of a narrow, grassed area stood a statue of a man on horseback. Pip had no idea who he was, but her curiosity was piqued and she made a mental note to find out.

Quaint was the word that jumped to mind as she made her way into Midgiburra, and even for a city-hardened journo the town was rather charming, although not the kind of place she would have chosen for a holiday. It wasn’t exactly a holiday—more a case of forced relaxation away from the city grind. ‘Bloody Ted,’ she muttered. She  still a little annoyed at her boss—and long-time friend—TedMalone for the part he played in her current situation. While she hadn’t exactly been fired, he’d made it clear she was not actively working for him for the next three months either.

‘We’ll call it long-service leave,’ Ted had said, leaving no room for reply. While most people chose when and how they spent their long-service leave—doing something fun like an overseas trip or doing house renovations—Pip was forced into hers to stave off what her mother bluntly termed a ‘mental breakdown’.

In fairness, Pip had just finished the hardest assignment she’d ever undertaken, one that had come with significant personal danger and unrelenting stress but had put her at the top of her field in investigative journalism. She’d pretty much sacrificed the past four years of her life investigating political corruption and uncovering a high-profile MP with connections to the underworld and crime syndicates. Pip’s exposé had led to an Independent Commission Against Corruption investigation into Allen (Lenny) Knight, who had recently been convicted and sentenced to prison…