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NEW RELEASES
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The 3rd Victim by Sydney Bauer (pub. Macmillan Australia) Publisher's Synopsis : A widowed mother. A blood-soaked nursery. A missing baby.
When David Cavanaugh hears of this heinous crime, he knows immediately he doesn't want to touch it. The mother's guilt is obvious to all, and David and his team are determined to be bystanders only to Detective Joe Mannix's traumatising investigation. So when David is unwittingly drawn into the case and appointed the mother's defence attorney, he knows the road ahead will be tough. With the odds stacked against them, David and his team get to work to prove their client's innocence, but time is running out. When there is a vicious attack on David's family, it proves they're on the right track, but it also seems that this time, David has taken on the one case that will be impossible to win. And one that could have devastating consequences for those closest to him. |
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Rip Off by Kel Robertson (pub. Macmillan Australia) Publisher's Synopsis: It's November 2007. There's sewage in the big lake at the heart of the soulless city, Canberra, the TABs have been emptied by a deadly horse virus and the longest Federal election campaign of all time still has a fortnight to run. One-time star detective Brad Chen seems destined for a desk job until someone starts shooting dodgy property developers in Perth and Adelaide. The state coppers he's sent to assist aren't much interested in anything he can do to help out, even when the body counts extends to shonky financial advisers, crooked lawyers and assorted other fraudsters in the eastern capitals. Chen is nonetheless determined to track down the hitman the public is calling a hero. Rip Off delivers readers another big serve of the solid plotting, witty dialogue and eccentric characters they've come to expect from the Brad Chen series and its Ned Kelly award-winning author. |
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De Luxe by Lenny Bartulin (pub. Scribe) Publisher's Synopsis : For once, Jack Susko is feeling pretty good: his secondhand bookshop is on the up, and the cops haven't been around in ages. Even his cat, Lois, is being nice to him.
Then one morning a beautiful woman knocks on Jack's door and hands him an eviction notice. His former boss, a corrupt property developer, asks for help with a particular situation and won’t take no for an answer. Throw in an ex-lover, her jealous boyfriend, half a dozen Playboy bunnies, a Nazi Luger and, of course, the police, and it's safe to say that Jack's favourable winds are quickly turning a little rough. In his most thrilling and riotous adventure yet, De Luxe finds Jack Susko with all the odds against him...and nothing but bad cards to play. |
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Is it a Litvinenko-style KGB assassination? The
spooks muscling in certainly think so. Are the murders linked? Or is
Nancy's death just the result of mistaken identity? Kathy is determined
to dig deeper, but comes up against walls of silence. If she persists,
does she risk her career - and possibly more? DCI Brock, meanwhile,
faces the fight of his life as his past comes back to haunt him. A crime long buried, a deadly African virus, and some of the most resourceful criminals Brock and Kolla have ever faced, conspire to make this Maitland's best mystery yet.
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Arctic Floor by Mark Aitken (pub. Arena) Publisher's Synopsis: Gerry Gallen is searching for peace after years serving as a captain in the US Marines special forces. But when Gallen agrees to lead a team or former soldiers looking after the personal security of an eccentric oil billionaire, he finds himself catapulted onto a rollercoaster of violence and double-crossing where private intelligence operators and clandestine hit teams are commonplace. Powerful US and Russian interests are vying for the Arctic?s valuable oil fields and it seems they?ll stop at nothing to secure control of them, even if it means global catastrophe. Gallen and his men are faced with a choice between personal safety and saving the world. They can either walk away or go to the Arctic Floor.
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African Dawn by Tony Park (pub. Pan Macmillan) Publisher's Synopsis: In the broken country that is Zimbabwe, only the strongest can survive. Three families - the Bryants, the Quilter-Phipps and the Ngwenyas - share a history as complex and bloody as the country itself. Dedicated conservationists Paul and Philippa Bryant face an enormous struggle: to save their farm and small herd of endangered black rhinos from corrupt government minister Emmerson Ngwenya. Twin brothers, ex-soldier Braedan and environmentalist Tate Quilter-Phipps join the fight. But the brothers' own history is fraught, and when they fall in love with the same woman, Natalie Bryant, their rivalry threatens to not only derail the attempt to save the rhinos, but also puts the lives of all involved at risk. And with Emmerson vowing to stop at nothing until he has control of the farm, a bloody showdown seems inevitable. With blood feuds still to settle, every one of these players will be drawn into the fray, and not one will remain unscathed.
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Ring of Fire by Peter Klein (pub. Pan Macmillan) Publisher's Synopsis: A fire takes no prisoners, has no conscience and destroys indiscriminately. So too, does the 'Barn Burner'. When horse racing steward Ryan Carlisle is banished to a long, hot summer on the bush racing circuit, he's devastated. Even though this is a chance to get away from his unbearable boss, his career is at a crossroads and his divorce has left him feeling insecure. But Ryan has no time to dwell on his misfortunes: an arsonist begins torching racing stables in a string of seemingly random attacks. As the tally in human life and horses rises, it's clear to Ryan the Barn Burner will not stop until caught. The police are baffled, racing officials are ducking for cover and when Ryan starts digging into his father's past and is seconded to the Arson Squad, his involvement in the case becomes very personal.
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The Chase by Christopher Kremmer (pub. Picador) Publisher's Synopsis: They're all doing it... It's not so much a contest between horses, as a race to find the best recipe. When young scientist Jean Campbell is invited help root out drugs in sport, she enters a murky world where power, privilege, money and illicit practices mix easily. It is Australia in the 1940s, the war is over, and Jean and her charismatic boss Howard Carter risk everything to expose the cruel underbelly of the 'sport of kings'. But old-school racehorse trainer Martin Foley refuses to go quietly, and his influence and 'connections' go straight to the highest echelons of polite society. Success or failure turns on a surly young stable hand from a broken home named Frank Littell, and the fateful decision he is forced to make... |
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The Race by Brett Hoffmann (pub. Penguin) Publisher's Synopsis: One sunny afternoon in Monte Carlo, a private jet carrying the heir to the Aretino fortune explodes, killing all on board. Tragic accident? Or cold-blooded murder? |
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A Decline In Prophets by Sulari Gentill (pub. Pantera Press) Publisher's Synopsis : In 1932, the RMS Aquitania embodies all that is gracious and refined, in a world gripped by crisis and doubt.
Returning home on the luxury liner after months abroad, Rowland Sinclair and his companions dine with a suffragette, a Bishop and a retired World Prophet. The Church encounters less orthodox religion in the Aquitania’s chandeliered ballroom, where men of God rub shoulders with mystics in dinner suits. The elegant atmosphere on board is charged with tension, but civility prevails... until people start to die. Then things get a bit awkward. And Rowland finds himself unwittingly in the centre of it all. |
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Berlin Syndrome by Melanie Joosten (pub. Scribe) Publisher's Synopsis : 2006, Berlin. The once-divided city still holds its share of secrets.
One afternoon, near the tourist trap of Checkpoint Charlie, Clare meets Andi. There is an instant attraction, and when Andi invites her to stay, Clare thinks she may finally have found somewhere to call home. But as the days pass and the walls of Andi’s apartment close in, Clare begins to wonder if it’s really love that Andi is searching for ... or something else altogether |
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Death wears a vintage
Pucci kaftan as our stylish, shadowy and dangerous agent comes face to
face with modern piracy in a bid to stay one step ahead of some of the
world's most dangerous men.
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A Man You Can Bank On by Derek Hansen (pub. Hodder & Stoughton) Publisher's Synopsis: The cops want to arrest him. The crims want to kill him. The town wants to name a dog after him. Lambert Hampton is the man the small, drought-ravaged country town of Munni-Munni turn to when they uncover $3 million stolen from bookies by ruthless bandits and buried seemingly in the middle of nowhere. A former bank manager, Lambert uses the money and his considerable entrepreneurial skills to rescue the town and set it on a viable, economic footing. The day of reckoning comes when the criminals are released from gaol. The crims want the money. The cops want the money. A rogue insurance investigator wants the money. And so do Australia s two most notorious hit men. In trying to save his town and all he s achieved, Lambert is forced to risk everything his life, the lives of the town folk, his own daughter, ten thousand barramundi and a really lovable Jack Russell.
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Whispering Death by Garry Disher (pub. Text Publishing) Publisher's Synopsis : Hal Challis is in trouble at home and abroad: carpeted by the boss
for speaking out about police budget cuts; missing his lover, Ellen
Destry, who is overseas on a study tour.
But there’s plenty to keep his mind off his problems. A rapist in a police uniform stalks Challis’s Peninsula beat, there is a serial armed robber headed in his direction and a home invasion that’s a little too close to home. Not to mention a very clever, very mysterious female cat burglar who may or may not be planning something on Challis’s patch. Meanwhile, at the Waterloo Police Station, Challis finds his offsiders have their own issues. Scobie Sutton, still struggling with his wife’s depression, seems to be headed for a career crisis; and something very interesting is going on between Constable Pam Murphy and Jeanne Schiff, the feisty young sergeant on secondment from the Sex Crimes Unit. |
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The Wreckage by Michael Robotham (pub. Sphere) Publisher's Synopsis: In London, ex-cop Vincent Ruiz rescues a young woman from a violent boyfriend but wakes next morning to find that he s been set up and robbed. As he tracks down the thieves, he discovers the boyfriend s tortured body and learns that powerful men are looking for the girl. What did Holly Knight steal that is so important to them Meanwhile in Baghdad, the bank robbery capital of the world, billions of dollars in reconstruction funds has gone missing and Pulitzer prize-winning Journalist Luca Terracini is trying to follow the money . The dangerous trail will lead him to London where he teams up with Vincent Ruiz and together they investigate the disappearance of an international banker and a mysterious black hole in the bank s accounts. |
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The Wonder of Seldom Seen by J.D. Cregan (pub. UWA Publishing) Publisher's Synopsis: Miles Jordon is a wanted man. But not in a good way. The police are after him. So too is the erratic, renegade ASIO agent Robert Wilson, and Greg Sweeney, a violent man whose wife Miles can’t resist. |
