«Coil of Danger» by Desmond L Kelly

Paperback 5 inches wide, 8 inches tall
 
Neil’s body is found on a sandbank. Murder or…?
 
Lockie, retired widower, works with Detective Inspector Georgia Lear again. 
 
Another murder… two more attempts … the handsome Mrs Stone is a suspect. Chloe, a London journalist, works on her family history.
 
Lockie and Georgia uncover wildlife smuggling, and a plan to inherit a fortune, but, to get the telling evidence, Lockie plays the most dangerous role of his life and survives – narrowly.
 
 
 
Fuller Synopsis
 
Who killed Neil Durry under the sub-tropical midwinter sun? When the barge docked at Macleay Island his new white utility was on the deck – but Neil wasn’t there to drive it off. Next morning his body is found on a sandbank in Moreton Bay.
 
Suicide, accident or murder?
 
Once again, Lockie, retired widower, and Detective Inspector Georgia Lear of the Queensland Police, work together to solve what proves to be a a testing and baffling case.
 
It involves Neil’s brother, Mark, Neil’s long suffering girlfriend Candace, the handsome and troubled Mrs Stone and Chloe’s search for her family ties to the historical convict, Tim Shea who hid on Macleay Island some 150 years ago.
 
A barge deckhand is murdered and the island historian is severely injured when her small boat explodes as she is boarding. Two more attempts on lives are made.
The whole scene is complicated by the love life of the handsome Mrs Stone plus the discovery of a profitable wildlife smuggling scheme involving the islands very rare Glossy Black Parrot.
 
Candace who was so drunk on the barge she cannot remember what happened to Neil, falls under suspicion and her employer, a Scottish ex-marine engineer, with a fearsome handshake, is found to be engaged in breaking the country’s financial laws.
 
Meanwhile Chloe, a young English journalist to whom Lockie has rented the other unit of his duplex for a few weeks, researches her Tim Shea connection.
 
Lockie and Georgia work through the evidence and ask for help from Scotland Yard concerning the death of a woman in a nursing home. Gradually they follow a trail of paperwork and family histories until they see what the pattern is but have no proof of it.
 
Lockie volunteers to get that proof before it disappears – which it is threatening to do – and in a tense climax he gambles on his acting ability.
 
It is very nearly the last thing he ever does.