Late Final Extra

It’s midnight in the newsroom of The Evening Extra, and there’s Marty Davis slumped over his keyboard. Drunk again? No. Look closer. He’s dead. Killed by a fatal combo of booze and anti-depressants. And Marty had plenty to be depressed about: his latest scoop had cost the paper the biggest defamation payout in Australian publishing history. It’ll probably kill the Extra. Yeah, but what a great story. It had everything. Sex, drugs and corruption¬; call girls and pollies partying on a massive motor yacht on Sydney Harbour. Even a senior State government minister. Pity it wasn’t true. Not the bit about the minister, anyway.
How did Marty get it so wrong?
That’s what Sophie Tebaldi wants to know. She’s the junior feature writer stuck with doing Marty’s obituary. How did such a dud story ever get published? How did it get past the defamation lawyers? How did it get past the editor? And why are people avoiding her questions?
Sophie finds she can’t stop at an obit. She’s got to dig deeper, sure there’s more to this than one dead journo. What about the government minister, his mistress, the madam, the young multi-millionaire newspaper proprietor – and a murder, or maybe two? What’s the thread? That’s what Sophie’s determined to find out, even if it kills her. And it just might.