This finale to ‘The Secret City’ trilogy neatly wraps up the events of its predecessors (The Marmalade Files and The Mandarin Code).

Harry Dunkley, once a feared, high-flying Canberra political correspondent, has been driven to his lowest depths. Publicly disgraced and hounded out of Canberra, Harry now lives on Sydney’s streets, musing over his failure to expose the secret and treasonous activities of a cabal of Canberra mandarins, defence personnel and politicians known as The Alliance. Saved from jail by an unlikely frenemy, Harry dries out and finds new purpose to throw one final roll of the dice and try to bring down The Alliance, which consists of some of the most powerful people in the country.

The story zips back and forth between the White House, Beijing and the corridors of power in the Australian Parliament. Under intense electronic surveillance, Harry struggles, along with his unlikely compatriots to gain traction with his exposé. Then come the death threats, and people really do start dying.

The authors, Canberra insiders, know their topic. They add depths of humour to this alarming tale while keeping the reader fully engaged with the cracking pace and a game of spot-the-pollie-or-personality. You can read between the lines to see the fun they’re having as they invert fiction and fact while trying – not too hard – to disguise identities. The ending was a bit deus ex machina, but I wouldn’t have had it any other way. Otherwise it would have been too depressing.

Reviewed by Brooke Walker