Truth

Stephen Villani is the acting head of the Victoria Police homicide squad.

But his first months on the job have not gone well: two Aboriginal teenagers shot dead in a botched operation he authorised in the provincial city of Cromarty; and, no progress on the killing of a man in front of his daughter outside a private girls' school.

Now five men are found dead in horrifying circumstances on the outskirts of the city.

Villani' superiors and the media are baying for arrests.

To add to his woes, some of the country's richest people are alarmed by the baffling killing of a young woman in the high-security tower where they live.

Villani, a man who has built his life around his work, begins to find the certainties of both crumbling.

As the pressure mounts, he finds that he must contemplate things formerly unthinkable. "Truth" is a novel about murder, corruption, family, friends, honour, honesty, deceit, love, betrayal and truth.