It’s a scorching hot summer on the Mornington peninsula and the police are preparing for the usual holiday madness. But this time it s not just petty theft and joyriding kids. There’s a killer on the Old Peninsula Highway and women alone aren’t safe. Detective Inspector Hal Challis is up against it. The media are demanding to know what he plans to do about the killer, his colleagues are either giving trouble or in it, and his troubled past just won t leave him alone.