Set in the 1930s, Return to Coolami is the story of a two-day motor car trip from Sydney, across the Blue Mountains to the country property, Coolami.

For each of the occupants of the shiny green Madison tourer, it becomes an interior journey: Susan and Bret, recently bound together in a marriage which seems to have little future, painfully grope towards some understanding of the events that have brought them together; Susan's parents contemplate their thirty-seven years of matrimony and wonder if their youthful yearnings and aspirations have been too easily set aside. Along the way, they discover a new understanding of themselves and each other.

'A thriller that belongs to the world of literature it deals with real life and real people.' H.M. Green in A History of Australian Literature