The Lost Claim (The Mercer Files)

A lost claim. A buried fraud. A money trail someone will kill to erase.

Lori Callahan catches forgeries for a living. She's never found one with her own surname on it.

She reads old paper-Queensland mining registers, transfer deeds, the dull documents that decide who owns what's underneath. So she knows what an altered date looks like. This one closed her father's claim on a day that never happened.

Then the letter arrives: YOUR FATHER'S CLAIM WAS NEVER CLOSED.

Noah Mercer has driven eleven hours to tell her the rest. A single receipt ties the worst day of his family's life to the Callahan ground-and to the money somebody buried under it.

The proof exists. That's the problem. Surveillance becomes a road train coming the wrong way on a dirt track. A court order seals the ground. Fire season opens, the river rises, and every page that could clear her father is sitting somewhere that burns.

Getting it back means going down into the old workings. Legally, they can't. Practically, nobody's coming to help.

Across Queensland's channel country, Lori's command of records and Noah's field sense are their only advantages against adversaries who weaponize courts, surveillance, and the landscape itself. Every discovery must survive not only attack, but scrutiny.

For readers who enjoy the clue-driven conspiracies of Blood & Treasure and the grounded Outback suspense of Mystery Road. Clean action-adventure with procedural bite.

Book 2 in The Mercer Files; it can be read as a standalone.

Follow the evidence into the Outback today.