Join us at Books@Stones on Thursday 17 July for crime fiction author P.A. Thomas in-conversation about his next beachside thriller, The Sunbaker.

From the author of The Beacon comes another page-turning beachside murder mystery, bursting with local colour and humour.

When overworked forensic pathologist Nicola Fox arrives for a long-overdue break at her holiday house in Brunswick Heads, on the NSW north coast, she's shocked to discover someone sunbaking on one of the sun lounges in her backyard. And that the sunbaker has been dead for some time.

Rumours soon emerge that the sunbaker took more than a few dark secrets to his grave, secrets many people - and especially the police - were keen to bury. When the arse-covering and finger-pointing begin in earnest, Nicola finds herself a suspect.

New to town, she only knows one person who might be able to save her: Jack Harris, a journalist at the local newspaper, The Beacon. When he begins investigating, the police organised crime unit arrives, and soon they are threatening both him and Nicola, leaving Jack to wonder if the police themselves are covering something up.

Can Jack uncover who really killed the sunbaker, and why the body was left in the backyard of a forensic pathologist, before the escalating threats to his own wellbeing become more than just threats?

P. A. Thomas studied medicine in Newcastle, NSW, undertook specialist training in nuclear medicine at the Mayo Clinic in the USA, and now works as a specialist at a public hospital in Brisbane. He is also a wilderness landscape photographer. He has had many joint and solo exhibitions, and his images have appeared in Australian Georgraphic publications. He lives in the Byron Bay region, the setting for his first novel, The Beacon, and its sequel, The Sunbaker.