The Shrouded Keel: A Michael Wickham Mystery

The story begins in the Vietnamese coastal resort city of Vung Tau in 1971 with the brutal and senseless murders of three young Vietnamese nurses. The local Vietnamese police are ill-equipped and even less motivated to solve the crimes so they enlist the help of a former Australian homicide detective and current Australian Army MP who involves US Army CID warrant officer Mike Wickham in the investigation. The stakes are raised for Wickham when two American nurses are murdered in a manner similar to that of the Vietnamese women. Wickham’s investigation points to a wealthy and influential Australian businessman as the killer but the evidence is circumstantial and no arrest is possible before the suspect flees home.

A dozen years later Wickham is back home in Newport and has become a successful local radio talk show host. Newport is in the midst of another America’s Cup summer and the seaside city is teeming with yachtsmen and tourists. Wickham unexpectedly meets his former Australian MP friend who is in Newport serving as head of security for the Australian cup challenger syndicate. Not long thereafter a young nurse is found murdered in Newport. Lt. Steve Carpenter, the lead homicide detective for the Newport Police, contacts Wickham who had told Carpenter years earlier about the unsolved murders in Vietnam. Carpenter tells Wickham that the Newport murder is unnervingly similar to the murders Wickham had told him about in Vietnam. In another bizarre twist Wickham discovers that the Australian businessman who was the suspect in Vietnam is a member of the Australian syndicate and that he had been in Newport for more than a month. Soon another murder and an attempted murder take place and there is still no direct evidence linking the powerful Australian businessman or anyone else to the crimes. It also becomes clear to Wickham that the relationship between the former Aussie MP and the businessman may be much closer and more sinister than either Wickham or Carpenter had imagined.