Publisher Description
Introducing Stella Hardy, a wisecracking social worker with a thirst for social justice, good laksa, and alcohol.
Stella’s phone rings. A young African boy, the son of one of her clients, has been murdered in a dingy back alley. Stella, in her forties and running low on empathy, heads into the night to comfort the grieving mother. But when she gets there, she makes a discovery that has the potential to uncover something terrible from her past — something she thought she’d gotten away with.
Then Stella’s neighbour Tania mysteriously vanishes. When Stella learns that Tania is the heir to a billion-dollar mining empire, Stella realises her glamorous young friend might have had more up her sleeve than just a perfectly toned arm. Who is behind her disappearance?
Enlisting the help of her friend Senior Constable Phuong Nguyen, Stella’s investigation draws her further and further into a dark world of drug dealers, sociopaths, and killers, such as the enigmatic Mr Funsail, whose name makes even hardened criminals run for cover.
One thing is clear: Stella needs to find answers fast — before the people she’s looking for find her instead.
Set in the bustling, multicultural inner west of Melbourne, Good Money reveals a daring and exciting new voice in Australian crime fiction.
APPLE BOOKS REVIEW
Whether you’ve spent time in Melbourne or not, Good Money—the first book in J.M. Green’s Stella Hardy series—brings the city’s western suburbs to life with grimy, vivid detail. When Stella, a social worker, suddenly becomes embroiled in a murder investigation, she must balance her flailing personal life with crime-solving. Green masterfully brings the feel of a hard-boiled, noirish detective story to present-day Australia, and balances the novel’s dark themes with witty, wicked gallows humour. We loved sinking our teeth into this gritty, entertaining read—and can’t wait to read more of Stella Hardy’s adventures.