The Fire Stone (Paperback) (ISBN-13: 9780648110378)

An assassin; an aimless binge-drinker; an Anglican cleric and a girl with a cello are forced to flee to Vanuatu to escape violence. Their histories and their future intersect at the point of a mysterious opal, The Fire Stone.
Sebastian, a young farm hand living in the Australian mallee is being watched by Val, a fugitive hiding in the forests on the banks of the River Murray. Val has an official document that confirms his death fourteen years ago. There is no official document that confirms his particular skill: assassin.
Pip divides her life between her musical studies at the Adelaide Conservatorium and her work as a barista. Her ordered life is shattered when bullets fired through the window of her home reduce her cello to matchwood. The violence appears all the more bewildering given that she lives with her father David, an Anglican cleric and retired missionary.
A web of violence draws all four of them together.
Everything in Sebastian's life begins to change when he is given the gift of a beautiful opal--The Fire Stone. It begins a journey in which he discovers more about his past, is challenged by David's wisdom and confronted by Pip's love.
The four of them seek to escape the violence that pursues them by sailing across the Pacific to the islands of Vanuatu. There, in the village community of Lamap, the final drama is played out...
...before The Fire Stone makes an unexpected return.