A Bird in the Hand is a gripping tale of intrigue and obsession that exposes a dark underbelly of internationally linked crime in the protected wetlands on the Bellarine Peninsula. When journalist George Jensen boards the newly refurbished Queenscliff-Sorrento ferry to conduct interviews with the captain and crew for his regular column in The Bellarine Courier, he is drawn to a striking woman in the foot-passenger queue wearing a red dress, a long multi-coloured scard and carrying a leather satchel. Hours later he is startled to see her lifeless body in a car on the return ferry, without the satchel and her scarf knotted tightly around her neck. George casts his original plan aside sensing a far more dramatic story that spans both sides of Port Phillip Bay, confirmed when DI Gus Mallory introduces a Sorrento-based detective sergeant to the police investigation. With savvy young Courier reporter Jenny Adams covering the Sorrento side, George follows leads on the Bellarine to a shadowy syndicate with baffling links to eel fishing in Lake Connewarre and another death in the Swan Bay marshes. Complicated by his volatile relationship with editor Fiona Catchmore and the borderline ethics of his news gathering techniques, George finds himself in mounting personal danger as he races to fit the final pieces of the puzzle into place.