Field Walking

Back in the days when he ran the Anglican Youth Centre in Sydney’s Kings Cross, the Reverend Max Kingsley fell foul of gang boss Leonard Stanley d’Aratzio. Now, Lenny has an incurable cancer and wants to settle some accounts before he dies. When hit man, Mad Charlie Magro, crashes his car on the way to assassinate Kingsley, a team of undercover police is sent to the New South Wales country town of Arajinna. But Lenny is prepared to set up as many hits as it takes to get revenge against the man who helped put him in gaol. To reduce the risk to other people, Max decides to create a temporary residence in the vestry of the church. It is an anxious time for him and for his wife Judith who remains at Banabrook homestead.

Meanwhile, Judith’s cousin, Tony Blake, is renovating a property on the river at Arajinna, where he lives with Emily, the mother of Judith’s half-sister Senator Caroline Blake. The renovations uncover evidence of earlier foul play in the district and Tony’s life is further complicated when he manages to get on the wrong side of the d’Aratzio family.

While people in Arajinna go about their business, largely unaware of the dramas being enacted close by, the Blakes and the Kingsleys deal with death on several levels.