Anna was eight when she became Steely

The crash on the farm track took her cousin and broke her family apart. Her father gave her a new name, and she grew into it.

Six years of army nursing in Afghanistan taught her how quickly a life can leave a body. Civilian life in suburban Melbourne was supposed to be quieter: a hospital job, a gym, a room set aside for fighting-stick practice.

Then a solo hike to a remote coastal peninsula puts her in the path of an old comrade — and a drug syndicate running product through a lighthouse storeroom. What starts as a chance meeting ends in gunfire, a funeral, and a job offer from a federal agent who has been watching her.

The trail runs from the Port Melbourne docks to a luxury hotel on the Gold Coast, where Steely goes under as Julie Collins and finds a conspiracy with immaculate cover. She will need every version of herself she has ever been: nurse, soldier, fighter, liar.

For readers of Jane Harper, Candice Fox and Lee Child

Setting Victoria & the Gold Coast

Period Present day

Genre Crime Thriller

Length 110,000 words

02 The Ground

Four places this story is fought over

The Farm Track

A hot gravel road, a blind corner, and the crash that ends one childhood and names another. Everything Steely becomes starts on this ground.

The Forward Base

Six years of army nursing in Afghanistan. Trauma work at the speed of incoming, and an education in exactly how fast a life can leave a body.

The Lighthouse

A remote coastal peninsula: a stone storeroom above a blue-green lake, and a smuggling route that has been running quietly for a very long time.

Docks to Gold Coast

Container yards at Port Melbourne, a country property with cameras on the front road, and a hotel suite where everyone's cover story is immaculate.

03 Read

From the opening pages

When you are young, you cannot know how things will develop, or for that matter, how long you have to live.

The only thing young Anna knew was she lived on a relatively small farm with sheep, a dog, a small horse, some chooks, and her mother and her doting father. As an only child, she had plenty of time to herself; it never seemed to worry her being on her own.

In her primary school years Anna walked the long driveway to the front gate each morning, to catch the school bus. Anna was often greeted by the early hot sun beating down, making the gravel road so very hot, or at other times, by a film of icy dew covering the landscape, making her small fingers and toes feel numb.

Continue reading when the novel is published...

04 The People

Who is in this

Steely Hart

Nurse. Veteran. Fighter.

Composed, physically formidable, emotionally guarded. Drinks lemon, lime and bitters while everyone else drinks wine.

Dace Acefield

Ex-special forces

Steely's opposite number, and the only person in the room who moves the way she does. Loyal, lethal, grieving.

Tom Jonas

Federal agent

Builds the taskforce and picks his people by instinct. He had been watching Steely for a while before he ever spoke to her.

Scott Ridley

Detective

The closest thing to warmth in Steely's orbit, and patient enough to wait for her to notice.

Booma

Syndicate boss

Red Ford Mustang, wrought-iron gates, no hesitation. He knows her name before she knows his.

05 The Author

Author Photo

About the Author

David M Little is a second generation Australian. After being diagnosed with cancer, he closed his design and building company. While convalescing he started to write about his early life, including his involvement in a number of pop bands as a drummer. Over a number of years he travelled with his wife Sue to many countries, enjoying the different culinary delights in India, China and Morocco. He also marvelled at the ancient Pyramids and Sphinx in Egypt, and delighted in the sights, smells and sounds of London, Moscow, Beijing, Cairo and Istanbul.

Travelling around so many lands expanded his appreciation of the magnificent beauty of the landscapes he encountered in Switzerland and Scandinavia, and the spectacular glaciers and waterfalls in South America. Nevertheless, he was always drawn back to his love of writing. Grappling with the story he had started many years earlier, finally, after a long gestation period, Anna Steely Hart was born.

Hear when it lands

A Steely Hart is finished — 110,000 words of Australian crime. Leave an address and you will hear once, when there is a publication date. Nothing else.