June 2006

Behind the Night Bazaar by Angela Savage (pub. Text Publishing) Publisher's Synopsis: Jayne followed Didier into the Night Bazaar, a concrete building that could pass for an underground carpark. As they zigzagged along aisles laden with clothing and souvenirs she wondered who created the demand for stuffed cobras wrestling with mongooses, scorpions in glass boxes and metre-long wooden penises. She paused briefly to feel the fabric of a crimson and black sarong: one hundred per cent polyester. Who said crime doesn't pay? Australian expat Jayne Keeney lives in Thailand and works as a PI in Bangkok. When she heads north to Chiang Mai to visit her good friend Didier, she soon discovers that the local police have an especially cosy relationship with money and illegal acts. But as Jayne learns of this she realises her own life is in danger. Murder, child prostitution, police graft and other stalwart crime subjects are all uncovered by Jayne in an exotic Thai setting in this thrilling series debut.

Double Imperative by Herb Hamlet (pub. Zeus Publications) Publisher's Synopsis: When Jenny McCarthy, a research assistant for a Federal Cabinet Minister is murdered, her husband, Terry, is wrongly imprisoned for the crime.  Destiny intervenes and Terry escapes. Whilst on the run he tracks down the leader of the prosecution team, Nicole Evans. He desperately needs to find a crucial witness who lied at his trial. Unbeknown to Terry, there are powerful forces at work behind the scenes...he is a threat that must be eliminated.

July 2006

	Vale Byron Bay by Wayne Grogan (pub. Brandl & Schlesinger) Publisher's Synopsis:   Vale Byron Bay records the death of promise. Set in the glorious coastal retreat of Cape Byron during the early 1970s when drug money and its diversification into property was still a few steps ahead of the law. Local politics intensified, with developers against environmentalists, often with frightening results, that tested the resolve of the true believers.
	The Shifting Fog by Kate Morton (pub. Allen & Unwin) Publisher's Synopsis: A rich and engrossing story of love, passion, secrets, and lies set in the gaiety, glamour, and grand country houses of post-war Edwardian England. Summer 1924: on the eve of a glittering Society party, a young poet takes his life. The only witnesses, two sisters, will never speak to eacother again. Winter 1999: Grace Bradley, 98, one-time house-maid, is visited by a young director making a film about the poet's suicide. Ghosts awaken and memories, long consigned to the dark reaches of Grace's mind, begin to creep back through the cracks. Set as the war-shattered Edwardian summer surrenders to the decadent twenties, The Shifting Fog is a thrilling mystery and a compelling love story.
	The Lady Splash by Kirsty Brooks (pub. Hachette Livre) Publisher's Synopsis: When amateur sleuth Cassidy Blair is given the task of trying out a beauty salon for the dancers at The Pussycat Club, it's difficult to explain why she finds herself waking up the next morning on a local beach, at sunrise, naked apart from some awkward sunburn, and a pathetic story about a lost dog.   With one of her friends dead, and her birthday coming up, Cassidy is too busy trying to squeeze herself into a tiny dress, caring for her new dog, Hellhound, not to mention guiding her recently detoxed friend Neil away from a crisis over his newly clean life to notice that she's caught the attention of some very unsavoury characters.   In The Lady Splash, Cassidy Blair eventually ends up stuck in a cellar with no sign of escape. Then she discovers how much she really needs her friends.
	Doppelganger by Michael Parker (pub. Penguin Australia) Publisher's Synopsis: A black tunnel began to form around me. My room started to spin. Desperately I tried to cry out but I couldn't make a sound. Then, like shattering glass, I crashed straight through the tunnel and out to the other side. Propelled out of his safe, ordinary world, Andrew is caught in the midst of a desolate city, torn apart by vicious gang wars. Here, the rules of survival are simple - you follow the pack, or you die. Dragged into one gang's brutal takeover campaign, Andrew has no choice but to embark on an unthinkable mission, in an attempt to sever the connection between the two worlds forever. If he succeeds, he will destroy everything in his life. But if he fails, hundreds will die - in both worlds.

August 2006

	Spider Trap by Barry Maitland (pub. Allen & Unwin) Publisher's Synopsis: Skeletons are discovered in Cockpit Lane, a poor black area of south London. They lead DCI David Brock and DS Kathy Kolla on a dark and dangerous journey into the heart of a drugriddled, secretive community.   In their desperate search for a crucial piece of missing evidence, Brock and Kolla get caught in the web of Spider Roach, who's determined to bring Brock down. They unwittingly set in motion a series of events that end in a shocking, violent conclusion.   This is the ninth mystery in the internationally acclaimed Brock and Kolla series.
	Hit by Tara Moss (pub, HarperCollins Australia) Publisher's Synopsis: She's street-smart, stunning and hoping to leave her troubled past behind her - Mak is back in the new bestseller from the author of Covet Makedde 'Mak' Vanderwall has her PhD and has started a new life in Australia with her detective boyfriend, Andy Flynn. To scrape together extra cash to start her first forensic psychology practice, Mak begins working part-time for an infamous Sydney PI. With a knack for investigation and bending the law, she might just have stumbled across her true calling and the career choice that could finally bust up her relationship once and for all. Then Mak is hired by a mysterious client to investigate the murder of A-list PA Meaghan Wallace. The police believe it's an open and shut case: a junkie street-kid is guilty. But the case turns out to be a lot more complicated as Mak uncovers a dangerous web of cover-ups, killers for hire, the powerful and debauched rich, and Australia's sleazy underbelly. If the boy didn't kill Meaghan, then who set him up? And how far will they go to keep their guilt a secret?
	Stranger by Stephen Smith (pub. Vintage Australia) Publisher's Synopsis: Gav's a dope-grower - the best gear in Sydney - and he's connected to the local kingpin, Biggsy. But it's a world that's starting to bore him stupid. Then he gets a hysterical call from Julie, his girlfriend, saying his best friend Wayne has her at knifepoint and is threatening to rape her if he doesn't come round with $10 000. Wayne is insane, a speed addict from hell. Gav doesn't know it, but Wayne and Julie have been sleeping together and the phone call is the start of a plot to get their hands on Gav's stash: his money and his dope. When Gav turns up, Wayne goes ballistic and beats him to a pulp. He and Julie race out west from Sydney in Gav's car - further and further into the bush, till all they get is red dust and barred-up towns, suspicion and madness. Gav's heart is broken, his nose has been beaten into his face, his business is destroyed, and all he can think of is revenge - on the both of them. Lucky he's met one of Biggsy's debt collectors who boasts of the hits he's done. Trouble is he's never actually killed anyone. But for $10 000 he'll give it a go. No worries. What unravels is a wild saga of out-of-control speed freaks; pig-shooting drug parties; a schizophrenic hitman, lecherous hippies, appalling violence, and a disturbing and gripping insight into a horrible but strangely compelling and hilarious world beyond the city limits.
	Fox Hunt by James Phelan (pub. Hachette Livre) Publisher's Synopsis: When the world faces a deadly threat from a lost weapon, Lachlan Fox, disillusioned ex-Navy operative, is forced back into action. Lachlan Fox has made a career out of being in the wrong place at the wrong time. As a shore assault specialist in an Australian Navy Clearance Diver Team, he came up against bad guys and even worse odds. Having been discharged from the Navy, Fox tries to enjoy the quiet life, but during a visit from his best friend Alister Gammaldi, Fox's life is thrown out of balance. On a diving trip off Christmas Island the pair recover an obviously military but unidentifiable pod from the sea floor of the Indian Ocean-setting in motion a chain of events that will drag them both into the corrupt world of international politics and arms races. From East Timor and Christmas Island to Grozny, Washington to New York, Venice to Iran, Lachlan Fox is forced back into action to save the world from a deadly threat.
	Diamond Dove by Adrian Hyland (pub. Text Publishing) Publisher's Synopsis: Emily Tempest has been away from Central Australia for along time--uni, travel, dead-end jobs. Finding trouble all over the world. Now she's back at Moonlight Downs, the community where she grew up, half in the Aboriginal world, half in the white. And true to form, there's trouble. An old friend brutally murdered and mutilated. An old enemy the only suspect. Until Emily starts asking questions.   Take a nail-biting mystery, an epic setting and a heroine with a talent for stirring things up. Throw in an affectionate flogging of outback Australia's melanoma-encrusted hide--and Diamond Dove may be the wittiest and most gripping debut of the year.
	The Mother by Brett McBean (pub. Lothian Books) Publisher's Synopsis: Hitchhiking along the Hume Highway, a woman searches for the man who killed her daughter. Her only clue - left in her daughter's final phone message - is that the man has a tattoo on his left arm saying 'Die Mother'. With her daughter dead and with nothing to live for, the mother is on a path of self-destruction. Consumed by guilt and the desire for revenge, her personality and appearance begin to alter. Becoming almost wild, she forgets her real name and where she used to live and work. Each driver she meets on her dangerous journey could be the killer - and each lift she accepts could be her last.
	African Sky by Tony Park (pub. Pan Macmillan Australia) Publisher's Synopsis: Rhodesia, 1943. Paul Bryant hasn't been able to get back in a plane since a fatal bombing mission over Germany. So, instead, the Squadron Leader is flying a desk at a pilot training school at Kumalo air base. But one of his trainees has just been reported missing. Pip Lovejoy, a volunteer policewoman, is also trying to suppress painful memories. When Felicity Langham, a high profile WAAF from the air base, is found raped and murdered, Pip and Bryant's paths cross. Suspicion immediately falls on the local black community, but Pip's investigations unearth a link between the Squadron Leader, the controversial heiress Catherine De Beers and the dead woman, which throws the case in a new, disturbing direction. What Pip thinks is a singular crime of passion soon escalates into a crisis that could change the course of the war.
	The Indignity of Death by Helen Denkha (pub. Zeus Publications) Publisher's Synopsis: Still looking for the perfect murder/mystery recipe???? Try this..... Take 1 Chief Inspector - Ryan Gregorian (if in season) Add 1 psychic - of the Cassandra variety Throw in a vision of three coffins........Add 1 dead politician shot outside a brothel Mix well and you have the ingredients for The Indignity of Death ...According to Cassandra's vision, three people will die. The politician is the first victim and Ryan is desperate to find the killer before two more deaths occur. He is determined to succeed while painfully aware that Cassandra has never been wrong before.

September 2006

	Undertow by Sydney Bauer (pub. Macmillan Australia) Publisher's Synopsis: Following an alleged conversation between respected attorney Rayna Martin and teenager Christina Haynes during a boating trip at Cape Ann, Massachusetts, one of them is dead, the other arrested for murder. Boston lawyer David Cavanaugh faces his toughest case to date as what appears to be a tragic but blameless accident turns into something else entirely. With the victim's father one of the most powerful politicians in the US Senate, and the Assistant District Attorney prepared to put his personal ambition ahead of legal justice, David finds that his most dangerous battle is taking place outside the courtroom.
	The Cobbler's Apprentice by Sandy McCutcheon (pub. Scribe) Publisher's Synopsis: When Samir Al-Hassani, a young Palestinian who had been captured in Iraq, does the impossible and escapes from Guantanamo Bay, it sets off a chain of events that will lead to tears and bloodshed around the world. He thinks he is being helped by fellow jihadis, but Samir is being set up - in more ways than one. He has embarked on a journey into the bewildering heartland of terrorism and counterterrorism, where betrayal and deceit go hand-in-hand with honour and duty. But who is pulling the strings: the CIA, Mossad, or someone even more treacherous? When he emerges with a master and a mission, the stage is set for a hair-raising development: Samir is about to become a biological weapon of mass destruction, targeted at the very people who released him.
	Murder In the Dark by Kerry Greenwood (pub. Allen & Unwin) Publisher's Synopsis: It's Christmas, and Phryne has an invitation to the Last Best party of 1928, a four-day extravaganza being held at Werribee Manor house and grounds by the Golden Twins, Isabella and Gerald Templar. She knew them in Paris, where they caused a sensation. Phryne is in two minds about going when she starts receiving anonymous threats warning her against attending. She promptly decides to accept the invitation - after all, no one tells Phryne what to do. At the Manor, she is accommodated in the Iris room, and at the party meets two polo-playing women, a Goat lady (and goat), a large number of glamorous young men and a very rude child called Tarquin. The acolytes of the golden twins are smoking hashish and dreaming, and Phryne finds that the jazz is as hot as the drinks are cold and indulges in flirtations, dancing, and mint juleps. Heaven. It all seems like good clean fun until three people are kidnapped, one of them the abominable child, and Phryne must puzzle her way through the cryptic clues of the scavenger hunt to retrieve the hostages and save the party from disaster.
	Soul by Tobsha Learner (pub. HarperCollins Australia) Publisher's Synopsis: In 1860, twenty-year-old Lavinia Huntington is transported from her Irish village to start a new life in Mayfair, London, as the wife of a gentleman anthropologist thirty years her senior. One year later she is standing trial for his murder. In modern-day Los Angeles, forty-year-old Professor Julia Huntington, geneticist, returns from a field trip to Afghanistan. She has received a prestigious commission from the US Defense Department to research a genetic propensity to kill without remorse. Soul is a story of two women, across two eras, and their struggle with obsessive love and revenge. Part murder mystery, part psychological thriller, part commentary on genetics and human behaviour, sexual jealousy and betrayal, it is both provocative and unputdownable.

October 2006

A Knife Edge by David A Rollins (pub. Macmillan Australia) Publisher's Synopsis: While working on a top-secret research program for the US Department of Defense in the freezing waters off Japan, a leading scientist turns up dead, eaten by a monster shark. US Air Force OSI Special Agent Vin Cooper is hurriedly dispatched to investigate. Cooper, however, has barely begun when he's pulled off the case to look into the death of an old military buddy who died while making a routine parachute jump. Both cases suddenly collide when Cooper finds himself having to parachute out of a plane and into the night-time skies of a hostile Pakistan. His mission: to recover stolen US Defense biological technology. The stakes: to prevent a nuclear war between Pakistan and India that could engulf the world. The problem: Cooper has to jump alongside a soldier he suspects is a killer.

Undercover by Andrew McGahan (pub. Allen & Unwin) Publisher's Synopsis: Think ahead five or so years from now, to an Australia transformed by the never-ending war on terror. Canberra has been wiped out in a nuclear attack. There is a permanent state of emergency. Security checkpoints, citizenship tests, identity cards and detention without trial have all become the norm. Suspect minorities have been locked away into ghettos. And worse no one wants to play cricket with us anymore. Enter Leo James burnt-out property developer and black-sheep twin brother of the all powerful Bernard James, Prime Minister of Australia. In an event all too typical of the times, Leo finds himself abducted by terrorists. But this won't be your average kidnapping. Instead, vast and secret forces are at work here, and Leo and his captors are about to embark on a journey into the underworld of a nation gone mad. Like some bastard child of Dr Strangelove and George Orwell, Underground is both an adrenalin-pumped thriller and a gleefully barbed satire that takes a chainsaw to political neo-correctness and Australia's new ultra-nationalism. Blistering and blackly comic, this book goes straight to the heart of the country's future and it isn't pretty.

November 2006

	The Murderer's Club by P.D. Martin (pub. Pan Macmillan Australia) Publisher's Synopsis: FBI profiler Sophie Anderson is still trying to come to terms with the horrors she experienced six months ago. A vacation to Arizona is a welcome break. But then bodies start appearing on the University campus, crudely posed and inscribed with a vivid love heart on their chests. At first it looks like the gruesome work of a new serial killer - Sophie does not recognise the lethal signature from the FBI database. Confused by the killer's actions and starting to "see" the victims in her waking dreams; Sophie knows the clock is ticking and someone else's life is in danger. She cannot ignore her visions any longer. Then a discovery is made which changes everything.   There's more than one killer...
	The Unknown Terrorist by Richard Flanagan (pub. Picador Australia) Publisher's Synopsis: Gina Davies, aka The Doll, is a 26-year-old pole dancer in Sydney's Kings Cross. On the evening of the Mardi Gras, 2007, three unexploded bombs have been found at Homebush Stadium. When wandering through the crowds, the Doll runs into a goodlooking, young dark man. They end up at his place. The next day while shopping in the city she sees a story on the news of a suspected terrorist entering the same building she had spent the night in. In an exclusive, the network has footage of the terrorist entering the building the night before with an accomplice - herself. And so a case is brought against her by the media, and the hunt for her begins. From a 26-year-old pole dancer in the Chairman's Lounge, she quickly becomes the most wanted woman in Australia as every truth of her life is turned into a lie...
	The Secret Familiar by Catherine Jinks (pub. Allen & Unwin) Publisher's Synopsis: Helie is a former spy of the famous fourteenth-century inquisitor Bernard Gui. Now he is living under an alias, trying to forget his past life of deception and intrigue. But a chance meeting once more brings him to the notice of the Inquisition; he is obliged to infiltrate a new heretical group, and find out what happened to the last spy sent to do so. Was he murdered or did he flee? Helie soon finds himself caught up in a dangerous conspiracy involving outlawed beliefs and human remains. The trouble is he no longer has the stomach for such an investigation - because his heart is beginning to betray him. Beautifully crafted historical fiction set in 14th century France, The Secret Familiar is a fascinating moral tale of betrayal, faith and ultimate truth.
	The Tesla Legacy by Robert G. Barrett (pub Harper Collins Australia) Publisher's Synopsis: Despite the Pentagon, it had to be found... Newcastle electrician Mick Vincent had almost everything in life he wanted. Jesse Ossbourne, the bookshop owner he loved. A big house at Bar Beach he owned. And a 1936 Buick Roadmaster he cherished. The only thing missing in Micks life was a pressure plate for his Buick. Through a strange old lady Mick finds his pressure plate. He also finds a diary belonging to Nikola Tesla, the electronics genius reputed to be smarter than Einstein. But what was Nikola Tesla doing in outback New South Wales in 1925? Building a doomsday machine powerful enough to blow up Australia and half the world according to Jesse. And its sitting on a fault line.   Even though the Tesla Legacy is highly classified the Pentagon spy satellites are zeroing in and a hit squad from the United States Department of National Security is out to kill them. With the hint of an oil company conspiracy in the air and ASIO in the background Mick and Jesse set off to find the Tesla Legacy first - their only clues a lost mountain of copper ore and an old racehorse called Tears of Fire. Robert G. Barrett's latest novel 'The Tesla Legacy' set in Newcastle, Muswellbrook, Scone and the mysterious Burning Mountain in New South Wales is an action packed pace driven thriller woven with a delightful touch of romance and an ending guaranteed to send chills down your spine. Proving once again why author Robert G. Barrett is according to the Australian newspaper the king of contemporary Australian fiction.
	The Perfect Suspect by Vincent Varjavandi (pub. Longueville Books) Publisher's Synopsis: Dr Tom Hackett had the perfect life - young, successful and a dream job working for a year in New Orleans. All that changes when his wife is murdered there, her body mutilated, the victim of a seemingly random attack. Desperate to leave those memories behind, he returns home to Australia and accepts a job in Sanctuary, an idyllic resort far from the dark shadows of old New Orleans. But there is no sanctuary from his past, and when a spate of gruesome murders hit the sleepy town, Tom suddenly finds himself the prime suspect - because all of the victims are women he knows, and all who are killed have an unmistakable similarity to his wife. Plunged into a deadly game of cat and mouse with a ruthless assassin, only Jack Maguire, a disgrace dhomicide detective with his own demons to battle, seems willing to help. But with Tom's life on the line, can he afford to trust anyone? With the police and the killer closing in, Tom must uncover Sanctuary's chilling secret, or remain the perfect suspect?
	Diamonds In the Mud and Other Stories by Joy Dettman (pub. Macmillan Australia) Publisher's Synopsis : At the beginning of her writing journey, Joy Dettman's charming, irascible, melancholy, wisecracking characters appeared in over twenty unique tales, many of which have won awards, many of which have never been published. Now, for the first time, Diamonds in the Mud and Other Stories is the complete collection of Joy Dettman's exquisite short stories.   We meet an old coot in a rusty ute who picks up a hitchhiker; a neighbour reaches across the language divide to lend a helping hand; a grave digger might just have saved a young man's life; an exhausted farmer's wife lusts after a china cup; Granny Jordan is losing her marbles; and an author is troubled by rats under the floorboards.
	Upshot by John Trigger (pub. Zeus Publications) Publisher's Synopsis: In the Supreme Court of NSW, Spencer Barrett - a journalist with a Sydney daily newspaper - watches Bridget Conrad chillingly confess to the murder of her own father.     It is 11th September 2001; the day news reaches Australia of the terror attacks in New York . With the image of the crumbling buildings burnt indelibly in Barrett's mind, he can only shake his head at the words of this beautiful young woman.   But in Barrett's own life the boundary between right and wrong has become blurred. He feels in himself a sense of power; a potency which does not seem to be acknowledged by the world around him.   Perhaps it is this that draws Bridget Conrad to him, entangling him in a web of crime and deceit?