GOOD MONEY

Introducing Stella Hardy, a wisecracking social worker with a thirst for social justice, good laksa, and alcohol.

Stella's phone rings. A young African boy, the son of one of her clients, has been murdered in a dingy back alley. Stella, in her forties and running low on empathy, heads into the night to comfort the grieving mother. But when she gets there, she makes a discovery that has the potential to uncover something terrible from her past — something she thought she'd gotten away with.

Then Stella's neighbour Tania mysteriously vanishes. When Stella learns that Tania is the heir to a billion-dollar mining empire, Stella realises her glamorous young friend might have had more up her sleeve than just a perfectly toned arm. Who is behind her disappearance?

Enlisting the help of her friend Senior Constable Phuong Nguyen, Stella's investigation draws her further and further into a dark world of drug dealers, sociopaths, and killers, such as the enigmatic Mr Funsail, whose name makes even hardened criminals run for cover.

One thing is clear: Stella needs to find answers fast — before the people she's looking for find her instead.

Set in the bustling, multicultural inner west of Melbourne, GOOD MONEY reveals a daring and exciting new voice in Australian crime fiction.

GOOD MONEY was shortlisted in the 2014 Victorian Premier's Literary Award for an Unpublished Manuscript. J.M. Green studied professional writing at RMIT. Her work has appeared in Overland and received an onourable mention in the Sisters in Crime Scarlett Stiletto Short Story competition. She divides her time between writing in her backyard studio and working as a librarian in Melbourne's western suburbs.