Darkwater is a historic home near Brisbane, still owned by the Forrests, the pioneer family whose founder built it in colonial times. Journalist Bob Slater, who is writing an article about the house and family for a local paper, is killed in a car accident on a dark wet night in the steep and dangerous Kaye Street, so children’s author Micky Douglas agrees to finish the article.
But Bob’s death bears an uncanny resemblance to that of William, son of the autocratic Eileen Forrest, in the same spot sixteen years previously and, after finding a cryptic message doodled by Bob Slater shortly before he died, Micky begins to wonder just how ‘accidental’ both deaths really were.
Driven by curiosity, Micky sets out to investigate and, in spite of being warned by his friend Inspector Reeves uncovers a deadly plot to suppress and old scandal of Government and police corruption, the truth about the supposed suicide of Eileen Forrest’s husband, a horrific crime against the original native tribe which once inhabited the Darkwater land – and a cunning murderer who is determined to remove Micky before he discovers the truth.