A THOUSAND MILES FROM CARE

A gripping and heartbreaking story, A Thousand Miles From Care tells the 30 year quest Steve Johnson undertook to uncover the truth about his brilliant brother's brutal murder in Manly.


At the entrance of Sydney Harbor, the cliffs rise fourteen stories above the Pacific, like a gigantic skirt made of sandstone. North Head, one of the most memorable cliffs, is a gorgeous place to watch the sunrise. But it's an unforgiving place to lose your footing. When Steve Johnson's younger brother Scott went over the edge in 1988, he hit an outcrop on the way down and exploded on the rocks below.

The police deemed it a suicide. But Steve Johnson never believed his brother would take his own life, and over the course of three decades he embarked on an arduous quest to find out what really happened to Scott. This profoundly impactful book traces the steps Steve and his family and friends took to solve the mystery, including navigating an openly hostile police force and a maze of dead ends, unreliable informants, teenage gangs, a faked confession, and setbacks at every turn. And yet their quest ended with an extraordinary outcome: a stunning turnaround by police who apprehended a suspect, 32 years after Scott's death.