Taken Launch with Dinuka McKenzie

A parent's worst nightmare. A case that's too close to home.

‘I was in the shower. I left Sienna in her bassinet ... When I got out ... She was gone.’

Detective Sergeant Kate Miles is back from maternity leave and struggling on multiple fronts - the pressures of a second child, financial strain from her husband losing his job, and a corruption scandal that may involve her father. When an infant goes missing, Kate finds herself fronting a high-profile and emotionally fraught case. Was baby Sienna removed from her bassinet by an unknown abductor or is the answer much closer to home? Amidst a frenzied media demanding answers, and a station chief looking for any reason to remove her from the investigation, Kate is pushed to her limits, pulled between the competing demands of the family at the centre of the case and her own spiralling personal life.

About Dinuka

Dinuka McKenzie is an Australian writer. Her debut crime fiction manuscript The Torrent won the 2020 Banjo Prize for fiction and was published by HarperCollins Australia in February 2022. Her then unpublished manuscript Taken was longlisted for the 2020 Richell Prize. She is represented by Alex Adsett Literary. When not writing, Dinuka works in the environmental sector and volunteers as part of the team behind the Writers’ Unleashed Festival. She lives in Southern Sydney on Dharawal Country with her husband, two kids and their pet chicken.

About Ashley

Ashley Kalagian Blunt is the author of Dark Mode, a psychological thriller out from Ultimo Press in March 2023. Her previous books are How to Be Australian, a memoir, and My Name Is Revenge, collected fiction and essays, which was a finalist in the 2018 Carmel Bird Digital Literary Award. Her writing appears in the Sydney Morning Herald, Overland, Griffith Review, Sydney Review of Books, Australian Book Review, Kill Your Darlings and more. Originally from Canada, she has lived and worked in South Korea, Peru and Mexico. Ashley is an award-winning speaker, experienced moderator and teacher of creative writing. She co-hosts James and Ashley Stay at Home, a podcast about writing, creativity and health.