Anonymous

Constable Paul Hirschhausen has a snowdropper on his patch. Someone is stealing women’s underwear and Hirsch knows enough about that kind of crime - how it can escalate - not to take it lightly. But the more immediate concerns are a call from the high school, a teacher worried about a student who may be in danger at home. Another call, a different school: a man enraged about the principal’s treatment of his daughter.

Constable Paul Hirschhausen runs a one-cop station in the dry farming country south of the Flinders Ranges. He’s still new in town but the community work - welfare checks and working bees - is starting to pay off. Now Christmas is here and, apart from a grass fire, two boys stealing a ute and Brenda Flann entering the front bar of the pub without exiting her car, Hirsch’s life has been peaceful. Until he’s called to a strange, vicious incident in Kitchener Street. Suddenly, it doesn’t look like a season of goodwill at all.

Cal Hooper thought a fixer-upper in a remote Irish village would be the perfect escape. After 25 years in the Chicago police force and a bruising divorce, he just wants to build a new life in a pretty spot with a good pub where nothing much happens. But then a local kid comes looking for his help. His brother has gone missing and no one, least of all the police, seems to care. Cal wants nothing to do with any kind of investigation, but somehow he can't make himself walk away.

All Jen had ever wanted was a big, happy family. And when she married Jason and became part of the Masterson clan that's exactly what she got. For years everything was perfect. But then Jen sees something that she was never meant to see; unearths a secret she was never supposed to discover. If she tells, then her idyllic life might be over. But can she really keep it to herself?