In Plain View

“In Bondi, some missing girls matter more than others.”

When eleven-year-old Cassie Edwards doesn’t come home one cold autumn night, her disappearance barely causes a ripple. Her mother is a known addict. The file is stamped runaway. No urgency. No task force. No media glare.

Detective Sergeant Jon Roth notices — and that makes him a problem.

While a more convenient missing-person case consumes the station upstairs, Roth is sidelined to the basement, waiting out a career built on saying the wrong thing to the wrong people. But Cassie’s story doesn’t fit the narrative, and Roth knows what happens when a child disappears without consequence: the truth is quietly buried alongside her.

As Roth digs deeper into Bondi’s streets and the police force that patrols them, he uncovers a pattern of neglect, prejudice, and institutional blindness — where appearances matter more than outcomes, and justice depends on who is worth looking for.

In Plain View is a dark Australian police noir about missing children, moral isolation, and the cost of caring when the system has already decided to look away.

A Detective Sergeant Jon Roth novel.

“So gripping, I almost didn’t make it to work!” - Jane C.