Winner of three Ned Kelly Awards for Crime Fiction.

It's Sydney, the 1950s, and Billy Glasheen is trying to make a living, any way he can. Luckily, he's a likeable guy, with a gift for masterminding elaborate scenarios - whether it's a gambling scam, transporting a fortune in stolen jewels, or keeping the wheels greased during a hair-raising your by Little Richard and his rock'n'roll entourage. But trouble follows close behind - because Billy's schemes always seem to interfere with the plans of Sydney's big players, an unholy trinity of crooks, bent cops, and politicians on the make. Suddenly he's in the frame for murder, and on the run from the police, who'll happily send him down for it. Billy's no sleuth, but there's nowhere to turn for help. To prove it wasn't him, he'll have to find the real killer.

Set in Sydney in the period following World War II, Peter Doyle's novels brilliantly explore the criminal underworld, high-level political corruption, and the postwar explosion of sex, drugs, and rock'n'roll. First published 1996, 2004.