Prophets and Loss (A Johnny Ravine Mystery)

by Martin Roth

  Chapter One

  At first people said that surely Old Albert Wallaby Walker died as he would have wished.

  They found him sprawled out in his Alice Springs painting studio, surrounded by his pictures, his brush in one hand, a tube of yellow acrylic paint in the other. He had been painting one of his famous images of the Kurtal rain spirit, and the yellow paint was smeared right across it.

  Certainly the manner of his demise was harsh, apparently hit on the head when an object tumbled onto him during an earth tremor. However, he was an old man - in his mid-eighties, most believed - and his passing must have been mercifully swift.

  But then doubts arose.

  For one thing, he had been struck excessively hard.

  And for another - why was it that earlier he had several times predicted his own violent death?