This is a reverse detective story of sorts based on several years of original and extensive research into the rape and murder of a teenage girl at a beach party on the east coast of Australia in 1989. Criminologist Kerry Carrington explores many unanswered questions about the case and particularly why the police didn't charge a number of boys with a range of matters relating to the crime despite having an abundance of compelling witnesses and forensic evidence available to them.
There is no narrative closure to this book, no Hollywood ending, no justice, just lots of challenging questions. By asking these questions, the author raises some profoundly disturbing issues about the exercise of police discretion in criminal investigations, about the inability of our legal system to deal adequately with the concept of moral and collective responsibility, about the source of sexual danger and risk in our society, and about the popular indulgence of adolescent rituals involving a degree of sexual intimidation.
