The Grocers' Son: A Clyde Smith Mystery

“I swear to God it was Willoughby. My brother stood not two feet away from me, called me Lina to my face, and pulled Harley into his arms, saying he was sorry, sobbing, and calling him his boy.”

An apparition in Sydney’s fruit and vegetable market leaves the mother of one of Clyde’s best friends believing that her brother, hanged for murder twenty-four years beforehand, has somehow risen from the grave and confronted her.

She is adamant that the visitation was real and visits Clyde asking him to investigate the mass murder her brother was supposed to have committed. She believes he was either set up or was covering for someone else’s crime.

Could this vision have been a folie à deux, a delusional vision shared by both mother or son? As Clyde investigates, clues lead him to one of Australia’s most famous silent screen actors, a man who, together with his murdered father, becomes intrinsically linked to the mass murder, known as The Killing at Candal Creek.

Wheels within wheels, lies, extortion, and coverups lead Clyde to a bloody confrontation on a deserted beach in the tropics. This time, it’s not only his own life at risk but also that of one of his most valued and closest friends.