January 1994. Seven bodies. No clues. Three men in a room. A maverick cop, a criminal psychiatrist, an American anthropologist. Where to go from here? This is the extraordinary story of how fate conspired against seven young backpackers on the threshold of their lives; of a dysfunctional family and how it raised a serial killer; and of the rough and tumble world of the NSW police - the good, the bad and the downright incompetent - and how they finally pieced the puzzle together. Veteran television reporter and journalist, Neil Mercer, has researched the tragic and horrifying backpacker case for the past three years, interviewing hundreds of people and reconstructing a sequence of events still largely unknown to the Australian public. This is a compelling and revealing story written with insight and care.