Book 1 of 2: An Emily Tempest Investigation

Emily Tempest, a feisty part-Aboriginal woman, left home to get an education and has since traveled abroad. She has been away from Australia for a long time, but now she’s returned to the Moonlight Downs “mob,” the community where she grew up, half in the Aboriginal world, half in the white. She is looking forward to a reunion with her childhood friend, Hazel, and to catching up with the rest of the group.

Within hours of her arrival, an old friend, Lincoln Flinders, the tribe’s elderly leader, is murdered and mutilated. The police suspect Blakie Japanangka, a renegade aborigine sorcerer, but Emily believes that the old man was slain for worldly reasons, and she starts asking questions. Emily Tempest, a modern half-aboriginal sleuth, is a welcome successor to Arthur Upfield’s classic detective.

Adrian Hyland spent many years in the Northern Territory, Australia, living and working among indigenous people. He now teaches at LaTrobe University. Moonlight Downs, published as Diamond Dove in Australia, is Hyland's first novel.