For Detective Dusty Buchanon, a female cop in the very male world of the Northern Territory Police Force, it always pays to expect the unexpected.

During the stifling pre-monsoon season known as the Build Up, a body is found in a billabong near a Vietnam veterans camp site. To Dusty it's the chance she's been looking for: a spectacular case to revive her flagging career.

But wherever Dusty goes, trouble tends to follow, and when she's taken off the case and busted back to uniform it looks like someone's just gotten away with murder. Can a former detective, with some unlikely help - a good-looking German twitcher, a reluctant rock 'n' roll black tracker, a pot-bellied pig - solve a case that becomes more complex and more chilling the closer Dusty gets to it?

Phillip Gwynne has written a page-turning crime thriller that is also a wonderfully detailed evocation of Darwin: a hustling, exotic melting pot of cultures. And he has created an unforgettable character in Detective Dusty Buchanon. Compelling, tense, yet darkly funny, The Build Up introduces a major new voice to crime writing.