From acclaimed writer Steven Carroll, comes the second in his new series of post-war literary crime novels featuring Detective Sergeant Stephen Minter.

‘What does a pile of clothes left on a deserted beach tell you? It’s a cold midwinter Monday. Seaweed and shells litter the flat expanse of sand. There is a light wind, the sea more disgruntled than choppy, the tide out. And there amongst it, the neat pile of clothes. Almost like a coded message waiting to be deciphered.’

Queenscliff, Victoria, 1951: A man has disappeared, leaving only a pile of neatly folded clothes on a beach. Missing, presumed drowned. But for Detective Sergeant Stephen Minter, newly emigrated from England, it’s far from an open-and-shut case. Because this is no ordinary man. Harry Playford is a successful politician, a charming man who is a rising ministerial star, a possible contender for the top job, who leaves behind a beautiful wife – and a mistress. There could be a simple explanation. But, these murky days of the Cold War, in a time of rising mistrust and suspicion, spies and espionage, Stephen can’t throw off his feeling that something’s definitely not right. About the whole business.

From one of Australia’s finest, most critically acclaimed writers, The Afterlife of Harry Playford is an absorbing, poignant and moving novel of hard choices and past mistakes.