Over the past four months, three homeless men have been murdered in Melbourne, apparently without motive, and Detective Sergeant Dennis Gatz is determined to apprehend the killer. The action starts immediately with Gatz in big trouble for shooting at three fleeing thugs in Banana Alley during an all-night stakeout. Leon Cranston Harle is killed and his mates, Warren and Troy Stimson, swear to seek out this homicide cop and avenge ‘Harley’s’ death. Gatz’s superiors are not too happy about the whole incident either.

The jacket blurb for No Way Back promises a hardened cop, devoted to justice, misunderstood by everyone around him and consequently ‘pushed to the edge’. All the elements are there to support this: Gatz has done military service, he’s been in the police force for seventeen years and he cracks cases no one else can because of his ‘unusual intuitive qualities’.