The sun was beating down on the baked earth like a merciless drum, and the air was thick with the

stench of sweat and desperation. It was just another day in the outback for them, but for me as an American it was an unbearable heat

But not as much heat as this case was generating

I'd only been in Perth for half a day, there to visit an old

girlfriend who invited me for a few days of nostalgia. Former client, actually, and a cop.

I found her husband fooling around.

And we began fooling around.

We both knew it was just a momentary fling.

Still, I enjoyed the invitation, until just this moment.

I was laying in my air-conditioned hotel room,

dead asleep at 5 in the morning when the call came in. 5 a.m. my time. 4 p.m. Ozzy time.

I should have stayed in the States. It was the local police on the phone. Australian cops, and they

wanted my help? Ah, so that's why she invited me. Oh well, I guess I left a positive impression.

They said three men had vanished without a trace in the Murchison,

a vast and unforgiving stretch of land that swallowed up men like a hungry beast.

The local coughs were out of their depth and they needed a private eye with a nose for trouble.

Yep, she described me to a tee. My name's not important. I'm a private

eye. I grabbed my hat and my gun from the hotel dresser and hit the road.

I rented Ford, kicking up clouds a red dust as I headed north.

These guys knew the outback, like the back of their hand. I knew it like the back of this

rental car and it stank almost as much as this case. Made my skin crawl.

My first stop was the candle station, a ramshackle collection of buildings that clung to the edge of the desert like a drowning man.

...