DEATH AT NEWPORT

Highly entertaining, colourful and fast-moving, Derryn Hinch's Death At Newport is a thriller which knots together a story of intrigue and revenge - against the backdrop of that famous millionaire's playground during the 1974 America's Cup races.

The mystery's separate strands originate in places as far removed as the embittering jungles of Vietnam and the desperate shanty towns of Rio.

An Australian journalist, Jonathan Hunter, becomes involved with the svelte secretary of the fabulously wealthy Newport identity Penelope Pike. He is dragged into the action when Penelope, a woman scarred by a lifetime of controversial liaisons, becomes the target of a kidnapper whose motives are compounded by things more sinister... more personal... than a mere $5 million ransom.

Reluctantly conscripted into a life-or-death situation that must be kept from police - and unable to give rein to his journalistic instinct to break the biggest crime story of the decade - Hunter must find Penelope Pike before her tormentor can exact his revenge.