Sensational rumours of the murder of three small children by their stepmother ignite the passions of Perth citizens in 1909. Shocked by horrific descriptions of how she poisoned the children, they demand her execution as one voice. [click to continue…]
Restricted
Francis Sprigge and Lilian Powys, two strangers escaping their past, move to the Blue Mountains together, following their dreams of creativity and love. But as Francis pursues his gift for designing exquisite wallpaper, Lilian finds that the ordinary life she craves remains frustratingly beyond reach. Despite her adoring husband and spirited young daughter Adelaide, Lilian cannot outrun her demons, and cracks soon appear in the family’s harmonious veneer. [click to continue…]
It’s not easy being Death. For starters, people keep dying. And then, they keep getting up again.
Steven de Selby got promoted. This makes the increasing number of stirrers (and the disturbing rumors of a zombie god rising sometime soon) his problem. [click to continue…]
In cold, murky water, working by touch alone, they can defuse a mine powerful enough to sink a battleship. Under the burning Afghan sun, they can dismantle a Taliban roadside bomb. Welcome to the world of the Royal Australian Navy clearance divers.
Bomb and mine disposal is but one of their roles. As covert swimmers they can infiltrate enemy waters. As boarding parties they are on the anti-piracy frontline. [click to continue…]
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. [click to continue…]
Goldie Alexander’s ‘Notes from a Bush Hideaway’ consists of twenty-two short pieces set on the south coast of Australia. In these Notes, Goldie describes some of the local flora, fauna and human activities. [click to continue…]
Cuba, 1959: In the final year of Errol Flynn’s life, he found time for one last adventure. The dashing star of many Hollywood films had always longed to be a real hero. Fidel Castro was the genuine article, and now he was looking for fame. What each man had the other wanted, and as revolution raged around them, the stage was set for an explosive encounter. [click to continue…]
At age fourteen, Donald Friend declared: ‘Have done quite a lot of painting lately, and have made up my mind that I shall be an artist. And I shall be famous!’ Friend achieved his aim. He also left behind more than two million words of brilliant, intimate diary entries—one of the greatest acts of autobiography in Australian history. [click to continue…]
From Brisbane’s sleazy Sin Triangle to drug busts in the wild far north, former undercover cop Domenico ‘Mick’ Cacciola tells his incredible tale of underworld crime and police corruption. After joining the Queensland Police Force in the 1960s, Mick risked his life infiltrating illegal gambling dens. [click to continue…]
The Vintage and the Gleaning is set in a winemaking town in the north-east of Victoria, close to the Murray River. Smithy is a retired shearer turned vineyard worker who has recently been forced to give up drinking after a lifetime of alcoholism. In his new sobriety he is contemplating the world in which he lives and the man he has been and become with a new understanding. Assaulted by long forgotten memories, Smithy is forced to take stock of his own past. [click to continue…]
