These notebooks, diaries and papers were found among the effects of Alethea Hunt, and are reproduced by kind permission of her father. We publish them without alteration. Many of the pages contain no hint of the date of writing, but we believe, from the handwriting, that those dealing with...Read more
Cornelius von Baerle, a respectable tulip-grower, lives only to cultivate the elusive black tulip and win a magnificent prize for its creation. But after his powerful godfather is assassinated, the unwitting Cornelius becomes caught up in deadly political intrigue and is falsely accused of...Read more
Handsome, proud, reprehensible, and misunderstood, Dominic Langton is the dark heart of A Difficult Young Man. Martin Boyd used his own family history as the basis for this remarkable coming-of-age novel, and presents a compelling psychological portrait of his wild, charismatic...Read more
For years the infamous Phelans, known with equal horror to the Social Security office and the local school, have lived in slovenly squalor in their council house in the run-down Belfield Grove Estate in the northern English city of Sleate.
The Phelans' infamy has even...Read more
In the pages that follow, I have collected some of my favourite exchanges which can fairly be described as acid drops. The cruel bon mot which has its sting drawn from the laughter that ensues. It was Oscar Wilde who pointed out that no comment was in bad taste if it was amusing - and if...Read more
Wilkie explains how the case for war was made in Washington, London and Canberra, and how the three governments routinely skewed, spun and fabricated the relevant intelligence.Read more
'The riot lost momentum as news of the butchery spread through the estate. The details were vague, no one knew how many had been killed or how, but castration, lynching and a machete attack were all mentioned.'
'Acid Row' is the name the beleaguered inhabitants give to...Read more
Three friends witness a terrifying fire that kills a Japanese painter when they are very young, and after growing up with the memory, one of them could be responsible for a chain of deadly arsonsRead more
In Act Of God, Charles Templeton has written the story of men and women trapped in a terrifying moral dilemma. A novel of extraordinary skill and authority, the plot is ingenious, the suspense electric and the characters are brilliantly drawn. Precisely authenticated details move the reader...Read more
Completed barely two months before her death, Pym's last novel is an incisive and wry portrait of life in an English village in Oxfordshire. It is also certain to be considered by many her masterwork. In A Few Green Leaves the author combines the rural setting of her earliest novels with...Read more
An anthology of psychological thrillers, whodunits, and suspense stories by popular mystery writers takes readers deep into dark hearts and twisted minds in stories by Anne Perry, Sara Paretsky, Ed McBain, Ruth Rendell, and others.Read more
Manson loves his daughter fiercely. So fiercely that he almost loses her in his fury when he discovers she is pregnant by her boyfriend, Gavin. Wounded and confused, he begins an affair with his secretary and neglects his wife. Within this short summer, his whole family will be turned...Read more
My son has asked me to write the "blurb" for this book. What can I say? When he was a lad. he showed a natural inclination to write so I sent him to Eton, and by the time he was 21 he had mastered the Alphabet. He took to travelling everywhere by pram - said it made him look younger. In...Read more
An odd group of refugees from life comprise the colonial population of the tropical Pacific island of Kaitai. Their idyllic lifestyle is disrupted when a murder occurs. The self-styled sultan of the island, George Buchanan, and the attractive Dr. Alicia Murray, investigate the ill assorted...Read more
"But down these mean streets must go a man who is not himself mean, who is neither tarnished or afraid." When Raymond Chandler wrote these words in his classic The Simple Art of Murder, he drew a blueprint for the male private eyes who descend from Philip Marlowe to populate the world of...Read more
Who killed the most unpleasant woman on Bagalow Beach?
What is the deathly secret of the skeleton buried in the garden?
How did a dead man come to sit on a plane beside a harmless-looking professor and his wife?...Read more
Inspired by a true incident, this powerful and disturbing novel focuses on Rudi Kabbel, a survivor of Nazi-occupied Belorussia, and Terry Delaney, a young Australian rugby player who falls in love with Kabbel's daughter. With the optimism and innocence of those unscathed by war, Delaney...Read more
It's 1944 and Theo Cazalle is returning to the family he left in Bonnemort, an estate deep in the French countryside, when he went off to fight with the Free French. Memories of Bonnemort have sustained him through four years of war, but when at last he comes home, he finds his world in...Read more
Goldsmith and Templewood investigate the background of a man, whom they think may be a Nazi war criminal, and plot his deathRead more
Schoolmaster Joe Askern has made a truce with life. His interests are simple and kept within safe bounds - until he meets Cess Carter, the friendly local criminal and father to one of Joe's more delinquent students, and he finds that he has risked everything that matters to him.Read more
Charlie Leathers was not the most popular man in the charming English village of Ferne Basset, but few people seemed to hate him enough to murder him. Still, that was his fate one night, and it brings Inspector Barnaby to the scene to investigate. What Barnaby doesn't know is that before...Read more
Widely acclaimed author Jackie French's journal of a year in the life of the Araluen Valley in the beautiful Southern Highlands of NSW. It's a combination of many stories - foxes in the autumn and the first of the asparagus, dashes to the school bus in the mornings and sleepy lizard...Read more
In 1959 Florence Green, a kindhearted widow with a small inheritance, risks everything to open a bookshop—the only bookshop—in the seaside town of Hardborough. By making a success of a business so impractical, she invites the hostility of the town's less prosperous shopkeepers. By daring to...Read more
In this collection, first published in 1912, Conrad has brought vividly to life the world of the sea and its adventurers. 'The only bond,' he wrote 'between these three stories is, so to speak, geographical, for their scene, be it land, be it sea, is situated in the same region which may be...Read more
Complete dagg John 'Nobby' Clarke (1948-2017) claimed a PhD in Cattle and held important positions with Harrods, Selfridges and Easibind; was sacked by ABC Radio and worked for various defunct newspapers; he enjoyed such recreations as reading theological works and dog trials. His address...Read more
In Anthony Burgess's influential nightmare vision of the future, criminals take over after dark. Teen gang leader Alex narrates in fantastically inventive slang that echoes the violent intensity of youth rebelling against society. Dazzling and transgressive, A Clockwork Orange is a...Read more
Malcolm Brown provides a fascinating collection of the most calculated and monstrous murder cases to hit Australia's headlines in recent years. Cases discussed include the Snowtown murder, the death of Maria Korp, the Melbourne society murders, child serial killer Kathleen Folbigg and many...Read more
After being passed over for the position of Head of Personnel, Graham Marshall despairingly perceives the underpinnings of his secure middle-aged existence slipping awayRead more
Primarily a gripping story of the men and women swept up by the passions of love and battle, William Boyd's magnificently entertaining novel also elicits the cruel futility and tragedy of it all.Read more
The classic play about Sir Thomas More, the Lord chancellor who refused to compromise and was executed by Henry VIII.Read more