The country town of Majic is about to celebrate a milestone. It's been 150 years since the founding father, Petar Majic, rode into the bush after a liquid lunch, vowing to build a house at whatever spot he reached by sunset. However, what happened next isn't quite what town legend would have you believe. A minor act of cemetery vandalism lands local columnist and amateur detective Nell Forrest right in the path of historical inevitability. An apparent murder-suicide leads to the unveiling of a century-old scandal and a trail left by a trio of long-dead women.
Nell's investigations are hampered both by the arrival of the handsome district detective and by her family. With directionless daughters, unplanned pregnancies, a spot or two of adultery and an ex-husband who wants her house, Nell barely has time for the case, let alone the energy to keep her wits about her. And Nell will need her wits as the mystery of Majic begins casting its shadow, putting Nell and her family in grave danger. In the end, Nell must decide whether it is a tale of epic fortitude, or treachery and ill-gotten gains, before the past catches up with her.
Ill-Gotten Gains is the second book in Ilsa Evans' Nell Forrest Mystery series. Nefarious Doings is the first.
Ilsa Evans was born in the Dandenongs, east of Melbourne, in 1960 and enjoyed a blissful childhood that has provided absolutely no material for writing purposes. Fortunately adulthood served her better in this regard. After spending time in an eclectic range of employment, from the military to health promotion to seaside libraries, she returned to tertiary studies and completed a doctorate on the long-term effects of domestic violence in 2005. She has now settled into an occasionally balanced blend of teaching, public speaking and writing and lives in a perpetually partially renovated house, not far from where she was born, that is held upright by a labyrinth of bookshelves.
Ilsa is the author of eleven books in a variety of genres, including three murder mysteries in the Nell Forrest Mystery series. She also contributes to several newspapers and online journals on social issues and won the Eliminating Violence Against Women (EVA) Award for online journalism in 2011.