A federal election campaign is thrown into chaos when a popular government minister goes missing and then turns up dead on the shores of Lake Burley Griffin.
With Detective Darren Glass and the Australian Federal Police on the case, the investigation into the minister’s murder quickly becomes entangled in a game of high-stakes politics. And all the while, the body count mounts.
Glass’s suspects include some of the most powerful people in the land. With the nation in shock and wanting answers fast, Glass has to negotiate a murky world of shifting allegiances, half-truths, and finger pointing, where everyone has a motive for murder.
And no one is safe — not even the prime minister. As election day nears, Glass risks everything for a breakthrough in the case, and his life is soon hanging by a thread. But if he thought he’d hit rock bottom, he was wrong …
'I salivated at the prospect of a book which combines two of my favourite things: crime fiction and dead politicians.'
Fair Dinkum Crime
'[A] solid police procedural with its finger on the political pulse of a fictionalised Canberra ... From Capital Hill, ringed by the deceptively calm leafy suburbs, to the shores of the spectacular Lake George, Cotton knows his beat.'
Sue Turnbull, Sydney Morning Herald & The Age
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'[A] cracker of a novel ... so good, it's hard to believe it's his first ... believable, daring, and page-turning. Well done, Mr Cotton.'
Deborah Sloan, Waikato Times
'With an insider's knowledge of politics, and a journalist's feel for a story, Cotton has produced a firecracker of a novel.'
Robert Gott
'Australian politics has been pretty weird lately,but this book proves conclusively that truth is not stranger than fiction. An election is the background for kidnap, murder and mayhem in this nail-biter. Canberra's corridors of power become the mean streets of crime fiction.'
Laurie Oakes
'Dead Cat Bounce builds as much tension as a hung parliament. Peter Cotton utilises his intimate knowledge of the workings government, office politics, Parliament House and Canberra to build a fabulous murder mystery. It almost crosses genres from crime fiction to political satire. The yarn has finesse and pace and is a stunning first novel.'
Paul Bongiorno
