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NEW RELEASES
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A Question of Death by Kerry Greenwood (pub. Allen & Unwin) Publisher's Synopsis : The Honourable Phryne Fisher - she of the Lulu bob, green eyes, Cupid's bow lips and diamante garters - is the 1920s most elegant and irrepressible sleuth. This all new collection of Phryne short stories and other Phryne miscellany (including lists of Phryne's favourite designers, decadent cocktail recipes and more) is a lavish affair with full colour illustrations by Beth Norling. Gorgeously collectable A Question of Death will bring joy to the hearts of Phryne Fisher fans everywhere. |
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The Big Score by Peter Corris (pub. Allen & Unwin) Publisher's Synopsis : Cliff Hardy has his hands full with murder, blackmail, embezzlement and more in this brand new collection of stories. Cliff doesn't waste words or pull any punches as he untangles an ugly divorce, investigates the killing of a drinking buddy, and takes care of a nasty case of blackmail ... The eleven tales are set in Cliff's Sydney - a place of thugs, mid-morning beers and crooked cops. |
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The Six Sacred Stones by Matthew Reilly (pub. Macmillan Australia) Publisher's Synopsis : The world is in mortal danger. For Jack West Jr and his loyal team of heroes, the challenge now is to set six legendary diamonds known as "the Pillars" in place at six ancient sites around the world before the deadline for global destruction arrives. The locations of these sites, however, can only be revealed by the fabled Six Sacred Stones. With only the riddles of ancient writers to guide them, and time rapidly running out, Jack and his team must fight their way past traps, labyrinths and a host of deadly enemies - knowing that this time they cannot, will not, must not fail. The mission is incredible. The consequence of failure is unimaginable. The ending is unthinkable.
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Skin and Bone by Kathryn Fox (pub. Macmillan Australia) Publisher's Synopsis : Detective Kate Farrer returns to duty after three months of stress leave. Fearing that she has lost her edge, she reluctantly partners homicide newcomer, Oliver Parke. They are immediately thrown into the investigation of a young woman who has been murdered and burnt beyond recognition. The postmortem reveals she had recently given birth, but there is no sign of the baby. With homicide shortstaffed and overloaded, Kate and Oliver are also ordered to investigate the disappearance of a teenage girl. When detectives find drugs and photos of naked women in a suspect's apartment, they wonder if they have uncovered a serial date rapist turned-murderer. Shocking links to the crimes emerge and Kate Farrer's past demons come back to haunt her. But she must fight them - her partner's life depends on it. |
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Les Norton and the Case of the Talking Pie Crust by Robert G. Barrett (pub. Harper Collins Australia) Publisher's Synopsis : Les Norton is back -- wearing ten-hole Doc Martens...
Warren is back, too - with his new girlfriend, Beatrice, a part-time coin collector who Les calls 'Ugly Betty'.
Bodine Menjou is an Albanian would-be filmmaker. The film he most wants to make is The Case of the Talking Pie Crust, based on the cartoons of Emile Mercier. So when the script goes missing, Bodine calls in Les to track it down.
Set in Bondi and the Central Coast, this is vintage Les Norton - giving advice to Bodine on his politically correct film Gone with the Willy Willy (featuring gay Muslims, a Maori suicide bomber and a flagon of Grange Hermitage), dealing with an enraged ice addict who won't stay down, and confronting a shot gun and an exploding building.Not to mention the Mongolian Death Lock ... |
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The Lost Dog by Michelle De Kretser (pub. Allen & Unwin) Publisher's Synopsis : Tom Loxley is holed up in a remote bush shack trying to finish his book on Henry James when his beloved dog goes missing. What follows is a triumph of storytelling, as The Lost Dog loops back and forth in time to take the reader on a spellbinding journey into worlds far removed from the present tragedy. Set in present-day Australia and mid-twentieth century India, here is a haunting, layered work that brilliantly counterpoints new cityscapes and their inhabitants with the untamed, ancient continent beyond. With its atmosphere of menace and an acute sense of the unexplained in any story, it illuminates the collision of the wild and the civilised, modernity and the past, home and exile. |
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The Memory Room by Christopher Koch (pub. Vintage Australia) Publisher's Synopsis : 'What is a spy? Are they born, or are they made?' With these words, Vincent Austin analyses his future occupation. Some spies are made, he says, but his kind is born. He is devoted to secrecy for its own sake. Vincent is orphaned early, and his boyhood in Tasmania is spent with an elderly aunt. His fascination with secrecy and espionage - and much else besides - is shared to an uncanny degree by Erika Lange, daughter of a post-World War German immigrant. She too has lost her mother, and she and Vincent see themselves as twin spirits, inhabiting a shared, platonic world of fantasy and ritual. At University, Vincent aims to enter Foreign Affairs - an ambition shared by his easygoing friend Derek Bradley. However, in his final year, Vincent is recruited by ASIS - Australia's overseas secret intelligence service - and his adolescent dream becomes reality. Erika becomes a journalist, eventually entering the overseas service as a press officer. She is an attractive and magnetic woman, but her emotional life is chaotic. She, Vincent and Bradley meet again in 1982, when they are in their thirties, and have all been posted to the Australian Embassy in Beijing. Here, Erika and Bradley begin an affair which is ultimately doomed to fail. At the same time, Vincent attempts an espionage coup which ends in disaster for himself and Bradley. Both men are expelled from China, and are based in Canberra, where Vincent is confined to the ASIS Registry: the 'memory room' of the book's title. This is the year of Star Wars, and the final phase of the Cold War. Erika, also returning to Australia, becomes a television journalist, and enjoys a period of national prominence. The fantasies of youth have become reality for Erika and Vincent, and lead to a tragic climax for them both. It is left to Bradley, who inherits Vincent's diaries, to contemplate their fate. Although THE MEMORY ROOM deals with espionage, its aims go far beyond those of a thriller. A psychological study of a brilliant but eccentric secret intelligence operative, it is also an exploration of the mystical nature of secrecy itself, and of the consequences of a shared obsession. |
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The Storm Prophet by Hector MacDonald (pub. Penguin Australia) Publisher's Synopsis : The Sydney Hobart yacht race is world famous: the crowds at the Boxing Day start; the Harbour full of colour; giant super-maxis competing for line honours and glory. But in the wrong weather, it can be deadly. No one will ever forget the carnage of 1998.
This year, Kirsten McKenzie must win. The bank she's inherited is in trouble, and desperately needs the PR boost of a race victory. Everyone thinks she'll do it - she's got the fastest boat and the best record. Everyone, that is, except a boy called Moses who claims to be able to see the future. He doesn't foresee victory. He sees a storm, mountains of water. He sees a disaster. Petra Woods is Director of the Sydney New Coastguard. She doesn't want to believe Moses's warning, but as the race draws closer and his other predictions start coming true, she might not have a choice. The only option may be to plunge in between the perfect race and the perfect storm. The Storm Prophet is a truly gripping thriller about a vision, a race and the merciless power of the sea. |
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To All Appearance Dead by Liz Filleul (Bettany Press) Publisher's Synopsis : When collectors' magazine editor Sally Meredith arrives in England from Australia, she anticipates a quiet time catching up with old friends and writing an article about a weekend conference on girls' school stories. However, she is soon caught up in a murder mystery that goes to the very heart of the collecting network. Nothing about the school story world remains unchanged by the end of Sally's visit, including Sally herself. A must for everyone who has ever wondered just how far they would go to possess that very rare title! |
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Trick or Treat by Kerry Greenwood (pub. Allen & Unwin) Publisher's Synopsis : Amateur sleuth and baker extraordinaire Corinna Chapman is upstaged when the hot new bread chain, Best Fresh Bread, opens just down the street from her own bakery, Earthly Delights. Meanwhile Daniel's tall, blonde and gorgeous old friend is staying with him while she establishes a base and a business in Melbourne.
When Daniel starts making excuses, Corinna begins to worry about his absences and also the strange outbreak of madness which seems to be centred on Lonsdale Street. Will Corinna win through a maze of health regulations, missing boyfriends, sinister strangers, fraudulent companies and back alley ambushes? Or will this be the end for the Earthly Delights Bakery? |
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Dead Lovely by Helen Fitzgerald (pub. Allen & Unwin) Publisher's Synopsis : Krissie Donald has no desire to 'settle down'. Committed men are hers for the taking, but she prefers explosive liaisons to any sort of full-blown relationship. Her best friend Sarah couldn't be more different - married to Kyle, a good-catchdoctor, and dying to start a family.
When Krissie joins Sarah and Kyle on a walking holiday in the Scottish Highlands, it seems like the peaceful balm they both need. But peace turns to betrayal when Krissie seduces Sarah's husband - and it isn't long before betrayal turns to murder.
Fast-paced and brilliantly told, with wickedly observed characters and a spectacular denouement, Dead Lovely is a compulsive read from start to finish.
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The Low Road by Chris Womersley (pub. Scribe Publications) Publisher's Synopsis : A young petty criminal, Lee, wakes in a seedy motel to find a bullet in his side and a suitcase of stolen money next to him, with only the haziest memory of exactly how he got there. Soon he meets Wild, a morphine-addicted doctor who is escaping his own disastrous life. The two men form an unwilling, unlikely alliance and set out for the safety of a country estate owned by a former colleague of Wild's named Sherman.
As they flee the city, they develop an uneasy intimacy, inevitably revisiting their pasts even as they desperately seek to evade them. Lee is haunted by a brief stint in jail, while Wild is on the run from the legacy of medical malpractice. But Lee and Wild are not alone: they are pursued through an increasingly alien and gothic landscape by the ageing gangster Josef, who must retrieve the stolen money and deal with Lee to ensure his own survival. By the time Josef finally catches up to them, all three men have been forced to confront the parts of themselves they sought to outrun.
Part classic film-noir crime-thriller, part modern tale of despair and desperation, The Low Road seduces the reader into a story that unfolds and deepens hypnotically. |
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Bloody Ham by Brian Kavanagh (pub. BeWrite Books) |
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Eden by Dorothy Johnston (pub. Wakefield Press) Publisher's Synopsis : Eden Carmichael, a politician, is found dead in a brothel on a hot afternoon. Sandra Mahoney mulls over a demeaning photograph showing Carmichael in a dress and blonde wig. When a lobby group asks her to investigate a company producing filters for the internet, Mahoney is surprised to discover a trail that others have ignored.
Eden shows Mahoney and her creator, Dorothy Johnston, at their most assured and accomplished yet. |
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Redback by Lindy Cameron (pub. Mira) Publisher's Synopsis : On an otherwise Tranquil Pacific Island Resort, ex-army Commander Bryn Gideon and The Crack Australia Redback retrieval team stage a high-level rescue bid to recover hostages captured by rebels.
Thousands of miles away, American journalist Scott Dreher is researching computer wargames, and finds a pirated copy that reveals shady arms dealings and disturbing hints of connections between government agencies and known terrorists. Around the globe, a string of seemingly unrelated incidents follow. Two ritual killings, one in London, one in Tokyo. A bomb on a Luxembourg train. A political assassination on an Australian beach, just days before an international summit. An explosion at an American army base. Are these isolated incidents in a world of opportunistic terrorists - or something infinitely more sinister? As their paths inevitably cross, Gideon's Redbacks and Dreher find themselves in a race to expose the ultimate, terrifying conspiracy of a truly evil force that plays both sides of the terror divide against each other. |
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Safari by Tony Park (pub. Pan Macmillan) Publisher's Synopsis : An increasingly volatile Zimbabwe and the jungle-clad mountains of the Democratic Republic of Congo is where a dangerously-charged game of cat and mouse plays out in Africa's wildlife wars.
Canadian researcher Michelle Parker cannot resist the opportunity to make contact with the famed mountain gorillas, but she is wary of the man giving her this chance -professional big-game hunter, Fletcher Reynolds. Fletcher represents all Michelle has fought against - the slaughter of animals for material gain - but she finds herself increasingly drawn to his power and is reassured by his apparent support for the stamping out of poaching. Into this mix steps ex-SAS officer Shane Castle. He has been recruited by Fletcher to spearhead the anti-poaching campaign. Shane is a man who has seen what bullets can do - to both human and animal - but is also a man who makes Michelle start to doubt the choices she has made... |
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Golden Serpent by Mark Abernethy (pub. Allen & Unwin) Publisher's Synopsis : Alan McQueen, aka Mac, was once a star of the global intelligence community, renowned for having shot and killed Abu Sabaya, the world's most dangerous terrorist. But that was 2002. Now Mac discovers that Sabaya is not dead. Instead he's teamed up with rogue CIA veteran Peter Garrison and is armed with a cache of stolen VX nerve agent.
Battling to stay one step ahead of Sabaya's hit-men, CIA doubleagents and deep corruption within Australian intelligence, Mac must find the stolen VX before it's too late. As the action builds to a nailbiting crescendo, Mac discovers a motive much older than simple terror: gold! Fast-paced and action-packed, Golden Serpent is sure to appeal to both young and old fans of the spy thriller genre. |
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Patriot Act by James Phelan (pub. Hachette Livre) Publisher's Synopsis : Ex-Navy operative Lachlan Fox is now working as an investigative journalist. When a number of European power-brokers are killed he starts to suspect something very big is going on. His instincts are right. Since the forming of the UKUSA (pronounced U-KU-ZA) Treaty in 1948, the five member countries (USA, UK, Canada, Australia and New Zealand) have developed ever-capable electronic Signals Intelligence services. Put simply, their intelligence agencies currently have the capability to intercept every spoken or written word that travels via telephone, fax, email, radio, microwave, satellite, fibre-optic transmission, etc. in the world.France has been vocal in their opposition - but the truth is, they want in. While military and terrorist communications are targeted, Echelon (the main UKUSA program) spends most of its time and resources targeting political and economic assets around the globe. This information is disseminated to US companies via The Advocacy Centre, set up by the Clinton Administration in 1993, and that year alone added $35B to the US economy through export gains. Lachlan Fox suspects that Echelon is under threat. He is the right man in the wrong place. |
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Beijing Conspiracy by Adrian d'Hage (pub. Penguin Australia) Publisher's Synopsis : The message on the Al-Jazeera television network is chilling. Dr Muhammad Bashir, the mastermind behind some of al-Qaeda's most deadly bombings against the West and a close confidant of Osama Bin Laden, has warned of a single horrific biological attack on civilisation. There is no cure for what al-Qaeda threatens to unleash, and there are no vaccines. The White House has dismissed the broadcast as scaremongering, and the President has reasserted his position that the West is winning the war on terror. Denzel O'Connor, the CIA's most experienced counter-terrorism expert, knows the President is bluffing. Holly Braithwaite, a brilliant young Australian biochemist, has already revealed how a deadly super virus can be genetically engineered. Now, not only has Holly Braithwaite shattered the Presidential Administration's complacency, but several vials of the deadly viruses are missing. O'Connor suspects the vials have found their way into the hands of al-Qaeda - but where are they? Bashir believes that the best place to unleash his final biological attack on a corrupt, materialistic and sexually depraved human race is a city which, for a short window of time, will attract millions of visitors who can take a super virus back to countless cities, towns and villages across the planet. His ultimate target: the Beijing Olympics.
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Maelstrom by Michael MacConnell (pub. Hachette Livre) Publisher's Synopsis :
Special Agent Sarah Reilly is the daughter of an FBI legend.
Her father made his reputation hunting down one of America's worst serial predators.
Now it's her turn.
A monster is cruising the east coast. One who has stalked the United States for three decades, claiming countless victims. A chameleon who has found a fatal flaw in the forensic profiler's art.
At the same time, someone is hunting down and eliminating serial killers with mechanical precision. A hunter with uncanny skill, limitless resources and lethal determination.
With the serial killer's interest in her growing, and the hunter drawing closer to his ultimate prey, time is running out. To save what is most precious to her, Sarah will have to enter the maelstrom or face her darkest fears. |
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Dark Heart: Images of a City by Travis Berketa (pub. Brolga) Publisher's Synopsis : Dark Heart is a thriller/social commentary about a man who has been through a lot of trauma and lost his faith in society. He notices that there are too many negative images in the media and decides that he is the cure for the city.
As a vigilante, he moves into a dark underworld in order to become saviour of the city. During the novel our lead goes through several stages that bring him face-to-face with the traumas that have been tormenting him - road rage, drugs, murder and rape. While facing these situations the vigilante moves from ordinary person to an image in the newspaper; from self-appointed hero to anti-hero, and finally, inevitably, to villain. |
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Bye Bye Baby by Lauren Crow (pub. Harper Collins Australia) Publisher's Synopsis : A schoolteacher is found murdered in an alleyway in a northern English city. Three months later a courier's body turns up in a toilet block in a rough London suburb. Two men with very different lives but a common death: both bodies have been gruesomely mutilated. Suddenly the entire country is on high alert: Britain has a serial killer on the loose. DCI Jack Hawksworth of New Scotland Yard is given the case -- a chance to prove his mettle after a past investigation that went horribly wrong. Hawk quickly pulls together a team to work the high-profile case, drawing on the best officers available to help him get the positive result he so dearly needs. DI Kate Carter is smart, ambitious and excited to be hand-picked for Operation Danube. But is her eagerness to work with DCI Hawksworth purely professional? When new evidence about the killer comes to light, Kate finds herself walking a fine line between her instincts as a detective and her personal feelings for Hawk. Meanwhile, several people are following the news reports with fearful fascination. They can't believe that the past has finally come back to haunt them. But there's a killer out there and, if what they suspect is true, any one of them could be the next victim. |
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Vodka Doesn't Freeze by Leah Giarratano (pub. Random House) Publisher's Synopsis : When a middle-aged man is brutally murdered in the dunes overlooking a children's pool, it's immediately clear to Sergeant Jill Jackson that this was no ordinary victim: someone has stopped a dangerous paedophile in his tracks. Knowing first-hand the impact of such men on their prey, Jill is ambivalent about pursuing the killer, but when more men die - all known to police as child sex offenders - she is forced to face the fact that a serial killer is on the loose.
As the investigation deepens, Jill unearths a long-established Sydney paedophile ring - a club of wealthy men who have thought until now that they are untouchable. Despite the deaths of some of its members, the club is still operating and until Jill can shut it down, children are still in grave danger. As she faces predators and their victims, a psychotherapist losing her mind, and her own nightmares coming to life, Jill is forced to decide whether or not she really wants to catch this killer. |
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All Those Bright Crosses by Ross Duncan (pub. Picador) Publisher's Synopsis: "There were nights when I knew I would win. It was not a thing I could explain. But I felt it. As a firmness in my bones, tautness in my muscles. A tingle on the lips. Everything connected, flowing, my senses heightened. A confidence that I could do nothing wrong. On those nights I won obscene amounts of money. And there were nights when I knew nothing would go right, that I was destined to lose."
Martin Flint has been hit hard. Two years ago his young daughter died in an accident, and while he and his wife are learning to cope with the tragedy, it doesn't look as if they're going to make it. More and more Martin turns to the only other friend he's got: the Pillars of Wisdom poker machine - until it lets him down one time too many. Using what's left of a small inheritance, Martin travels to Fiji. A little time-out from a life out of control is also an opportunity to research the story of a nineteenth-century treasure. From the realm of Sydney's poker machine parlours to the seedy bars and backstreets of Suva, Martin encounters conmen, criminals, drifters and dreamers. A young Fijian woman with troubles of her own provides heartache and hope - and the knowledge that life isn't always elsewhere. |
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Gospel by Sydney Bauer (pub. Macmillan Australia) Publisher's Synopsis: US Vice President Tom Bradshaw is the perfect candidate, a "sure thing". But when he is found dead in the penthouse of Boston's finest hotel, the American people want answers and his administration needs a scapegoat.
It has been twelve years since Boston attorney David Cavanaugh's ex-wife Karin left him for another man. Now, she has called to ask the impossible. She wants him to represent her husband. The charge - murder. The victim - the Vice President of the United States. Now Cavanaugh faces the toughest decision of his career, a decision he knows will ultimately see him face off with his past and carve out his future. What he does not realise is that Tom Bradshaw's death is only the beginning. Three more are dead and his enemies will stop at nothing to protect their secret and consolidate their power, for they are an unbreakable band of four, and their word is GOSPEL.
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Hell Island by Matthew Reilly (pub. Pan Australia) Publisher's Synopsis: Matthew Reilly's Hell Island novella was, until now, only available for the month of the Books Alive campaign in 2005. Now, for the first time, it is available for general sale.
It is an island that doesn't appear on any maps.
A secret place, where classified experiments have been carried out. Experiments that have gone terribly wrong. Four crack special forces units are dropped in. One of them is a team of Marines, led by Captain Shane Schofield, call-sign: SCARECROW. Nothing can prepare Schofield's team for what they find there. You could say they've just entered hell. But that would be wrong. This is much, much worse. |
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The Butcherbird by Geoffrey Cousins (pub. Allen & Unwin) Publisher's Synopsis: Set in the boardrooms, yachts and waterfront mansions of Australia's most decadent city, The Butcherbird is a boisterous thriller about corruption and excess in the corporate world.
Jack Beaumont, architect turned property developer, is as surprised as the next person when he is approached by insurance tycoon Mac Biddulph to become the new CEO of HOA, the largest home-insurer in Australia. Seduced at first by the lure of power, Jack soon finds that beneath the glamorous facade of the Sydney business elite lies a convoluted network of corruption. Out of his depth and pursued by piranhas in a fish tank full of money, Jack must unravel the elusive threads or become ensnared himself. Geoffrey Cousins has called upon his own insider experience at the highest levels of Australian business to conjure a darkly comic, suspense-filled tale of intrigue peopled by a tantalisingly familiar cast of A-list sharks. |
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The Calling by Jane Goodall (pub. Hachette Australia) Publihser's Synopsis: Jane Goodall's popular leading lady, Briony Williams, is now a detective with the Chelsea CID. She has grown in confidence and rank from when she first appeared in The Walker as a rookie cop. In the fierce English summer of 1976 the Punk movement is on the rise and chaos is the catchcry down in its heartland at the World's End of London. But things take a darker turn as a new group calling themselves Sudden Deff show signs of wanting to live up to their name. When Briony learns that she and two close colleagues have appeared on 'Deff Row' in the group's fanzine, she is drawn into a fatal game with a set of adversaries who always seem to be two moves ahead. |
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Punter's Luck by Peter Klein (pub: New Holland) Publisher's Synopsis : John Punter never expected his career of betting on horses to find favour with his father, a well known racing trainer. After all, he threw in those 4 am starts cleaning out stables to sleep in, enjoy life and make a living on the punt. But then he never expected to be the prime suspect when an old racing mate goes missing, big drug money disappears and bodies start piling up. Somehow, Punter is always in the right place at the wrong time and the cops think he's their prime suspect. So Punter enlists the help of Kate, an old flame now a senior crime reporter to help him dig up the truth. But the more they look, the murkier the trail becomes and Punter soon finds that the financial dealings at the top end of town can be just as ruthless as the betting ring at any big day at the track. |
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Appeal Denied by Peter Corris (pub. Allen & Unwin) Publisher's Synopsis: Stripped of his investigator's licence and with his appeal denied, Cliff Hardy faces an uncertain future. Then something very personal happens that sends him off doing what he does best - confronting, questioning, provoking violent reactions - with the lack of credentials not an issue. In Appeal Denied Hardy encounters corrupt cops, bereft wives and computer geeks - with a shadowy showdown that leaves his future even more clouded than ever before.
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Sensitive New Age Spy by Geoffrey McGeachin (pub. Viking) Publisher's Synopsis:
Special agent Alby Murdoch - the reluctant hero of the riotous adventure thriller D-E-D Dead! - is right back in the thick of things in another hilarious, page-turning romp.
It's a sunny holiday Monday and all Alby wants is a decent cup of coffee and a day off. But there's a hijacked tanker with a deadly cargo in Sydney Harbour and bullets are flying on board a US Navy cruiser. Three sailors are dead and a Seahawk chopper is missing.
Who's behind the mayhem? Why is the government intent on shutting down Alby's investigation? What's the connection to the smooth-talking Reverend Priday, spiritual leader to the upwardly mobile, and Artemesia Gaarg, reclusive heiress on a crusade to save the whales? |
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Crater by Phoenix Connor (pub. Bantam Australia) Publisher's Synopsis: This book has everything - venomous snakes, man-eating alligators, a rogue seven-metre-long anaconda, earthquakes, an erupting volcano and, most importantly, mutant apes on the loose! It is certainly in the mould of Matthew Reilly, with its relentless pace and continuous stream of life or death situations for the heroic band of survivors. Man's most ambitious experiment becomes mankind's greatest threat. Intent on creating compatible organ donors, biogeneticists have opened Pandora's box by tampering with the genes of several primates, which escape and breed in the California wilderness. Six years after the animals' escape, biologist Matt Hayden is trapped by an earthquake in Crater. Along with physician Dr Lauren Vale, he and a diverse band of survivors are thrown into conflict with an arriving horde of hybrid apes whose intelligence and breeding cycles have been genetically enhanced. Fascinated by these creatures, Matt forms a tenuous friendship with the hybrids' leader, Kubla, but relations between the two trapped species deteriorate during the struggle to survive the increasing dangers in Crater. This fantastic new novel blends science, action, suspense, romance, humour and horror into a scientific thriller that will leave you breathless. |
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A Little Rain on Thursday by Matt Rubinstein (pub. Text Publishing) Publisher's Synopsis : Jack is a translator and language buff. His librarian girlfriend Beth is mourning her father, Frank, a minister of religion who by the time of his death had grown distant from his wife, his daughter and his faith.
Beth inherits the old stone church in Sydney where Frank used to preach. After the couple moves in, Jack stumbles on a manuscript hidden in the crypt. It's written in a strange hand in an unknown alphabet with peculiar illustrations, and something about it promises great secrets. Bit by bit Jack grows obsessed. Is this bizarre book a hoax or in some kind of code? How old is it? Is it the key Beth needs to understand her father? Or does her answer lie in the box of old family photographs she finds in the church? Jack embarks on a feverish quest to understand his find-searching for answers from cryptology and forensics, from translators and philosophers, paramedics and librarians, medieval knights and mad monks. But each new turn in the labyrinth only takes him further from the truth. What is he really looking for? |
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Sucked In by Shane Maloney (pub. Text Publishing) Publisher's Synopsis: Murray Whelan is pushing fifty. He's also pushing something malodorous uphill as a member of the Labor Party's very small, very ineffectual parliamentary minority. It's a thankless task, and Murray is not a satisfied man.
But Charlie Talbot's a dead one, and there's nothing like the passing of an old friend to put things in perspective. When it coincides, however, with the discovery of human remains that may unlock a mystery from Murray's past, the question has to be asked. How much perspective can one man really handle? Eagerly anticipated by his legion of fans, Shane Maloney's sixth Murray Whelan has been well worth the wait. |
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Amongst the Dead by Robert Gott (pub. Scribe Publications) Publisher's Synopsis: Failed Shakespearean actor and would-be private detective William Power returns in this brilliant, wry sequel which recreates the tension and fear of WWII in Australia. The Japanese army is rampaging through the islands of the South Pacific and Australia's front line of defence is a top-secret, crack division of men embedded deep in the tropical wilderness of northern Australia. But something is threatening their vital, covert mission: one of this elite corps is a murderer, preying on his comrades, one by one. With a case too sensitive to be trusted to the police, military intelligence turn to the one man whose abilities make him capable of infiltrating the clandestine military operation and rooting out the killer. |
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The Night Ferry by Michael Robotham (pub. Sphere) Publisher's Synopsis: Alisha Barba's dreams of being a detective were shattered when a murder suspect broke her back across a brick wall. Now on her feet again, with her police career in limbo, she receives a message from an old school friend, Cate Beaumont, who is eight months pregnant and in trouble. On the night they arrange to meet, Cate is mown down by a car that kills her husband instantly. As paramedics fight to save her life they discover there is no baby. Her pregnancy is an elaborate lie, a cruel deception. Why? What happened? As Alisha sets out to answer these questions she is drawn deeper and deeper into a dangerous quest that will take her from the East End of London to Amsterdam's red light district and into a murkey underworld of sex trafficking, slavery and exploitation. A gripping thriller, with twists at every turn, The Night Ferry is Michael Robotham's finest novel yet. |
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Frantic by Katherine Howell (pub. Macmillan Australia) Publisher's Synopsis: In one terrible moment, paramedic Sophie Phillips life is ripped apart - her police officer husband, Chris, is shot on their doorstep and their ten-month-old son, Lachlan, is abducted from his bed. Suspicion surrounds Chris as he is tainted with police corruption, but Sophie believes the attack is much more personal - and the perpetrator far more dangerous...
While Chris is in hospital and the police, led by Detective Ella Marconi, mobilise to find their colleague's child, Sophie's desperation compels her to search for Lachlan herself. She enlists her husband's partner, Angus Arendson, in the hunt for her son, but will the history they share prove harmful to Sophie's ability to complete her mission? And could one dangerous decision cause Sophie to ultimately lose everything important in her life? |
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The Shadow Maker by Robert Sims (pub. Allen & Unwin) Publisher's Synopsis: A brutal serial killer targeting prostitutes is loose on the streets of Melbourne. The first victim is chained, blinded and left hanging on to life by a thread - but his next targets aren't so 'lucky'. As the attacks grow more frenzied and the mutilations ever more vicious, criminal profiler cum investigator Mariita Van Hassel and the homicide squad are placed under increasing pressure to catch the killer before he strikes again.
Their investigation leads to a psychotic crime boss, an underworld conspiracy and a dangerous new computer game before they discover the deadly truth of what it means to be The Shadow Maker.
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Shattered by Gabrielle Lord (pub. Hachette Livre) Publisher's Synopsis: Gemma Lincoln has to find the murderer of a police superintendent. But will the Force close around her? Is a cop the killer? Private Investigator Gemma Lincoln is back. A brother and sister-in-law are shot dead in the hallway of their family home. The dead man, Bryson Finn, was a police superintendent; his bereaved wife, Natalie Sutherland, is a former detective. Was this a case of cop killing cop? Natalie hires Gemma to find out, fearing that the Force will close ranks to keep it quiet. That might not be the smartest thing Ms Sutherland has ever done...
While trying to solve this bloody crime, and the many minor skirmishes that help pay the bills for a PI, Gemma has to make tough decisions about her own life. Is she in love with Steve? Will she tell him about the baby? Can she be a mother on her own? Gabrielle Lord draws on all her skills as the Queen on Crime to weave a story that is thrilling, bloody and unpredictable, as well as personal, warm and thoughtful. She stands alone as a writer who can bring together a brutal crime and the story of an independent woman who is like the rest of us in many ways, but also very, very brave.
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Cherry Pie by Leigh Redhead (pub. Allen & Unwin) Publisher's Synopsis: Simone Kirsch - ex-stripper, sex kitten, private investigator and drinker of more cheap wine than is good for her - is back, setting up her own PI agency and getting into more trouble with her clients, her lovers and the police. Just how much trouble can one girl get into? If it's Simone Kirsch, then it's a lot. The Simone Kirsch Detective Agency - it has a ring about it that Simone loves. And she's willing to bump, grind and shimmy until she has the money to make it happen. But nothing every really runs quite to plan for Simone. Andi Fowler, a childhood friend and now journalism student, turns up at the strip joint in need of a detective yet unwilling to tell Simone anything more than she's got something explosively big on someone in hospitality. And the whole frenetically fast, chaotically connected case starts right there. By 5.47pm the following day, Andi's vanished mysteriously. Restaurant corruption, an insane celebrity chef, an untraceable possum head, a conveniently absent boyfriend and a surprising amount of family history aside, Simone still has to deal with her continuing desire for Alex, her favourite policeman, on-again, off-again lover and now engaged, while racing the clock in her desperate search for Andi. With enough red herrings and jaw-dropping surprises to shake even Simone, Cherry Pie is unputdownable. |
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The End of the World by Paddy O'Reilly (pub. University of Queensland Press) Publisher's Synopsis : Stylistically varied and enlivened by a wry, dark humour, this collection shows Paddy O'Reilly living up to the promise shown in her debut novel, The Factory. With subtlety and assurance, O'Reilly creates narrative voices and situations spanning a broad range of experience - an alien visitor who communicates in the language of romance, a woman waiting for her death, a case of confused identity, and the sour taste of relationships lost or abandoned. O'Reilly's characters are at once defiant and accepting, curious and bewildered. From Japan to suburban Australia, and onto a place where larger, odder things are possible, The End of the World plays with our perceptions of reality. |
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An Easeful Death by Felicity Young (pub. Fremantle Arts Centre Press) Publisher's Synopsis : The victims are young, beautiful women, their bodies left posed like mannequins in public places. The first is painted bronze, the next silver...who is the gold for? And what is the significance of the words Easeful Death, from a poem by Keats, that appear hand painted on the bodies of the victims?
Detective Sergeant Stevie Hooper, young, hard-edged and newly seconded to the Serious Crime Squad in Perth, is getting disturbing flashbacks as the Poser case unfolds. It's a race to get inside the mind of the killer and something is not quite right about James De Vakey, the expert criminal profiler who is flown in to help on the case. Trying to sort out her own tangled life, and looking out for her boss Monty who is the target of a web of police corruption, Stevie finds the carefully drawn line between professional and personal increasingly blurred till she doesn't know who can be trusted.
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Company by Max Barry (pub. Scribe Publications) Publisher's Synopsis: When is physical violence an appropriate response to management policy? Why is that one reserved parking space always empty? And when does helping yourself to an extra doughnut at morning tea become a criminal act?
At Zephyr Holdings, no one has ever seen the CEO. The beautiful receptionist is paid twice as much as anybody else, but appears to do no work. One of the sales reps uses relationship books as sales manuals, and another is on the warpath because somebody stole his doughnut. In other words, it's a typical big company. Or at least, that's what everyone thinks, until fresh-faced employee Jones - too new to understand you just don't ask some questions - starts investigating. Soon Jones uncovers the company's secret: the answer to everything, what Zephyr Holdings really does, and why every manager carries a copy of the Omega Management System. It plunges him into a maelstrom of love, loyalty, management, and corporate immorality - and whether he can get out again. Now that's a good question. In the tradition of William Gibson, Joseph Heller, and Douglas Coupland, Company is a biting, incisive, and delightful satire of corporate culture. |
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Chain of Evidence by Garry Disher (pub. Text Publishing) Publisher's Synopsis: Hal Challis is 1000 kilometres away from the Peninsula, watching his father die. Ellen Destry is left to mind his house for a month. And his job.
Katie Blasko, aged nine, has disappeared. Ellen fears abduction-the Peninsula is sleepy, picturesque, prosperous, but she suspects the existence of a paedophile ring. Superintendent McQuarrie scoffs: the girl came from the Seaview Estate, notorious for broken homes and truancy. Ellen's team investigates. They find suspects, but an officer is murdered and his witness discredited. They find DNA evidence, but the sample is contaminated. Who can Ellen trust, when lawyers, judges and police officers might be involved? Meanwhile, Challis feels out of time and place in the remote outback town of his youth. Past failures haunt him; his father is dying slowly and bitterly; and Homicide Squad detectives have arrived from the city to question his sister about a murder. Challis can cope with being warned off. He can cope with his father. But soon the past catches with him. |
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And Hope To Die by J. M. Calder (pub. Penguin Australia) Publisher's Synopsis : When a fourth child is taken, Solomon Glass knows what to expect. An anonymous letter to the mother, making a promise: kill yourself and your child will be released. He knows because two women are dead already.
Glass has just survived his own nightmare - a tragedy, an internal investigation and a spell off the force. In his race to uncover the kidnapper, Glass must enter the darkest side of himself, a place he's barely able to go but where he knows he will find the answers. And the more he learns, the more he suspects that's exactly what the killer wants him to do. So begins a deadly game of cat and mouse, played for the highest stakes of all. Cross your heart . . . And Hope to Die is a dark, powerfully compelling psychological thriller that will chill you to the core. |
