WINNER 2024 Danger Awards - Best Fiction
SHORTLISTED 2024 Sisters In Crime Davitt Awards - Best Adult Crime
SHORTLISTED 2024 Ned Kelly Awards - Best Fiction
She keeps everyone's secrets, until there's a murder...
Sydney, 1965: After a chance encounter with a stranger, mild-mannered tea lady Hazel Bates becomes an accidental sleuth, stumbling into a world of ruthless crooks and racketeers in search of a young woman she believes to be in danger.
In the meantime, Hazel's job at Empire Fashionwear is in jeopardy. The firm has turned out the same frocks and blouses for the past twenty years and when the mini-skirt bursts onto the scene, it rocks the rag trade to its foundations. War breaks out between departments and it falls to Hazel, the quiet diplomat, to broker peace and save the firm.
When there is a murder in the building, Hazel and her network of tea ladies put themselves in danger as they piece together clues that connect the murder to a nearby arson and a kidnapping. But if there's one thing tea ladies can handle, it's hot water.
