Through a Camel's Eye — Dorothy Johnston

'Still, he looked for hoof prints, glad there was nobody to laugh at him for doing so. He shaded his eyes and squinted at a dark object, half covered in sand, then began to walk towards it. He should should have been wearing sunglasses to protect his eyes, but he never thought of things like that. It was a women's coat, black, or at least it has been.'

 

A young camel disappears from its trainers paddock and the coat of a murdered women is found abandoned in the sand dunes. These seemingly unrelated events are a far cry from the regular police duties of Constable Chris Blackie and his rookie recruit from Melbourne, Anthea Merritt, in the small seaside town of Queenscliff. Little by little and with a burgeoning sense of menace, these two unlikely detectives carefully navigate the eclectic, often eccentric personalities of the town, as well as the disdain of law enforcement colleagues further afield, to uncover the unsettling truth.

 

Described as a 'sea-change mystery' Through a Camel's Eye deftly juxtaposes the idyllic surroundings of a coastal Victorian town with the gravity of murder.

"Dorothy Johnson stands with the best of Australian crime writers, her exquisite sense of people and place as evocative and compelling as the elegance of her plots." - Sara Dowse, author of West Block and As the Lonely Fly