Melbourne's laneways are built for secrets. Behind rain-darkened brick, bluestone and the morning rush of
coffee orders, the city keeps a second life hidden from the streets above.
At The Bean and Leaf, a small café tucked into Melbourne's CBD laneways, Joseph "Zen Joe" Kerrigan has
become part of that hidden city: a gifted barista, quiet philosopher and familiar presence whose cryptic
sayings are as much a fixture as his coffee. When Joe dies unexpectedly, what first appears to be a tragedy
inside an ordinary café begins to reveal a far more complicated pattern.
His routines, coded observations and seemingly eccentric sayings take on new significance, drawing the
investigation through Melbourne's laneways, vintage shops and academic circles and into the discreet offices
of a high-technology world most café regulars never knew existed.
As the clues accumulate, the mystery moves beyond personal grudges and café gossip. Information has
been concealed in deliberately low-tech ways, relationships are not what they appear to be, and someone
has understood that the safest place to hide valuable data may be among objects and habits nobody thinks
worth examining.
A Filtered Fate combines traditional mystery, social observation and understated humour with Melbourne
coffee culture, old buildings and new technology. It is the second novel in Steven Goldsmith's Marvellous
Melbourne Murders series.