Cirrus@Austlit

'Flared skirts, beehive hairdos, stay-at-home mums ... Australia in the fifties and sixties was comfortably conservative. Then along came the seventies ...

'This is the story of how one young Australian navigates her way through a decade of upheaval.

'It's 1971, past midnight on a cold Sydney winter's night and Pamela finds herself alone in the darkness on the side of a deserted highway with no money and no idea where she is. She's just escaped an abusive relationship and so begins her life as a single parent, living in communal houses, racing across the city between child-care and work and home, saving for her dream of travelling the world.

'Drug-dabbling along the Hippie Highway in Asia, battling homelessness in London, living in France and Greece in a rusty old Kombi van, Pamela hones her survival skills. And all the while surpassing Bridget Jones in her selection of unsuitable men.' (Publication summary)

'GP Dee Flanary risks her reputation, her livelihood and ultimately her life when she investigates the death of a patient. As Ian Rankin evokes Edinburgh and Jane Harper the Australian bush, this terrifying yet tender thriller immerses us in Sydney and the wild mountains of southern NSW.

'Tom's corpse lies cold and decaying on his bed. Can Dee fight the coroner, the police and the medical establishment to prove his death was murder? As she delves into the circumstances around his tragic fate she uncovers a trail of apparently 'accidental' deaths and a sinister connection to her own past.

'Suspicion and paranoia fight with reason as she tries to uncover the truth. Her discoveries threaten powerful men. The medical board label her psychotic, her deregistration is imminent. If she persists her career and her livelihood will be at risk.

'When the killer attacks Tom's naïve young girlfriend, Dee is forced into an edge-of-your-seat confrontation with a cold and ruthless murderer.'

Source: Publisher's blurb.

'A helicopter with the Russian President aboard is shot down over northern Syria and captured by the Scorpion, the last remaining and most feared ISIS combat commander. The only person who could possibly effect a rescue is former OSI Special Agent Vin Cooper. But unfortunately for the President, Cooper's not in the saving-the-world game any more.

'A small US Special Ops unit witnesses two Russian Hinds downed over northern Syria. The last remaining and most feared ISIS commander known as the Scorpion captures the survivors - the Russian President, his entourage, and the briefcase containing the launch codes for Russia's nukes.

'And those missiles are still mostly aimed at US cities.

'With this haul in his possession, the Scorpion is proclaimed the Madhi, the final caliph of the Koran's apocalyptic legends who will defeat the West and usher in the End of Days - when the dead shall rise and walk the earth.

'As millions of Muslims flock to the Scorpion's black standard and corpses rise from their graves, it's left to that lone US Special Ops unit to sort shit out. Only it's led by Major Vin Cooper, who is now a reservist and not into the whole saving-the-world thing any more.'  (Publication summary)