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by Karen Thurecht (Author)
It's the near future and the city of Brisbane finds itself gripped by escalating racial tensions and violence. Twenty-year-old Seeton Harlin, a passionate activist against the recent influx of Palestinian refugees, is killed during a heated rally and a by-stander, Yusef Ibrahim finds himself caught in the crossfire and is accused of the murder.
Homicide's Detective Inspector Mitchell Gray is tasked with investigating the tragic incident, but despite his meticulous efforts, he finds no concrete evidence linking Yusef to the crime, much to the dismay of the public and Seeton's sister, Lividia who are crying out for justice. The city teeters on the precipice of unrest, with a perceived lack of accountability fuelling the flames of hatred and division.
Against this backdrop, two Palestinian men fall victim to drone strikes and the authorities discover that the drones, modified from innocuous leisure crafts, have been imbued with ethnicity recognition software, their sole purpose to eradicate those of Palestinian descent. Dr Nova Corbin, an anthropologist of artificial intelligence, is urgently summoned to aid Detective Gray in unravelling this terrifying new threat.
In a race against time, Gray and Corbin delve deeper into the abyss of hatred and technological terror. While the authorities are convinced the attacks are terrorist based, they focus on identifying networks and cells that have come to Australia with the refugees. But Nova and Detective Gray are concerned that the attacks are more personal. They believe Lividia Harlin has been manipulated in her grief and outrage to assist a Nationalist organisation that wants to force the government's hand and stop the refugees. With help from Yusef, who is quietly working to exonerate himself, they uncover a vast conspiracy orchestrated by a shadowy collective, hellbent on igniting a Nationalistic race war through the deployment of their lethal drones.
