After his last case imploded in spectacular fashion, Joe Gardella has escaped to Australia to evade the authorities and rebuild his shattered life. Now working as a private detective, he's doing his best to stay out of the spotlight. Then one cold August morning, an innocent coincidence changes everything.
The Moth Orchid is a gritty, heart-wrenching crime thriller set on the glamorous Gold Coast of Australia and follows retired police detective Joe Gardella as he struggles to survive in his new adopted home. With no work and no money, Gardella finds himself wandering the streets of Bayswater where he eventually stumbles into a graveyard. As he is reading the headstones, he comes upon an inscription that stops him dead in his tracks. It reads, "Heavenly Father, bless this unknown boy." Gardella decides to uncover the mystery behind those words and embarks on an investigation that leads him along a path he cannot afford to go down.
Scouring old news clippings, he discovers the boy was found in bushland down a steep bank near a rural road back in 1987. With little more to go on, Gardella risks everything to establish a secret contact within the Bayswater Police, where he obtains a copy of the original case files. The files contain a sinister clue never before released to the public: a single white moth orchid was placed carefully on the body. Checking the dates, Gardella realises the 30th anniversary of the murder is looming. Working on a hunch, and with time running out, he goes searching for the scene of the crime. When he finds it, he also finds something else. Another moth orchid, freshly placed, in the same spot where the body was found thirty years earlier.
The Moth Orchid is Justin Warren's fourth book. It picks up from the end of Dead Ground where Dylan Harper and Joe Gardella get dragged way over their heads after a case about a missing journalist turns into a tangled conspiracy that leads to the highest corridors of power. With no other option but to flee the country, Joe Gardella must now establish a new life, with the constant fear that someone will always be looking for him.
Genre: Mystery
The Moth Orchid is a gritty, heart-wrenching crime thriller set on the glamorous Gold Coast of Australia and follows retired police detective Joe Gardella as he struggles to survive in his new adopted home. With no work and no money, Gardella finds himself wandering the streets of Bayswater where he eventually stumbles into a graveyard. As he is reading the headstones, he comes upon an inscription that stops him dead in his tracks. It reads, "Heavenly Father, bless this unknown boy." Gardella decides to uncover the mystery behind those words and embarks on an investigation that leads him along a path he cannot afford to go down.
Scouring old news clippings, he discovers the boy was found in bushland down a steep bank near a rural road back in 1987. With little more to go on, Gardella risks everything to establish a secret contact within the Bayswater Police, where he obtains a copy of the original case files. The files contain a sinister clue never before released to the public: a single white moth orchid was placed carefully on the body. Checking the dates, Gardella realises the 30th anniversary of the murder is looming. Working on a hunch, and with time running out, he goes searching for the scene of the crime. When he finds it, he also finds something else. Another moth orchid, freshly placed, in the same spot where the body was found thirty years earlier.
The Moth Orchid is Justin Warren's fourth book. It picks up from the end of Dead Ground where Dylan Harper and Joe Gardella get dragged way over their heads after a case about a missing journalist turns into a tangled conspiracy that leads to the highest corridors of power. With no other option but to flee the country, Joe Gardella must now establish a new life, with the constant fear that someone will always be looking for him.
Genre: Mystery