Cirrus@Austlit

'Three couples, friends since high school, rent a luxurious house in the mountains for an unplugged weekend of drinking and bushwalking. No internet, no phones, no stress. On the first night, the topic of partner-swapping comes up. It's a joke - at first.

Not everyone is keen, but an agreement is made. The lights will be turned out. The three women will go into the three bedrooms. The three men will each pick a room at random. It won't be awkward later, because they won't know who they've slept with - or can pretend they don't.

'But when the lights come back on, one of the men is dead. No one will admit to being his partner. The phones still don't work, and now the car key is missing. They're stranded. And the killer is just getting started ...' (Publication summary)

'Ernest Cunningham returns in a deliciously witty locked room (train) mystery.

'When the Australian Mystery Writers’ Society invited me to their crime-writing festival aboard the Ghan, the famous train between Darwin and Adelaide, I was hoping for some inspiration for my second book. Fiction, this time: I needed a break from real people killing each other. Obviously, that didn’t pan out.

'The program is a who’s who of crime writing royalty:

the debut writer (me!)
the forensic science writer
the blockbuster writer
the legal thriller writer
the literary writer
the psychological suspense writer.

'But when one of us is murdered, six authors quickly turn into five detectives. Together, we should know how to solve a crime.

'Or commit one.

'How can you find a killer when all the suspects know how to get away with murder?'

Source: Publisher's blurb.

'A black comedy about an anxious young poet who accidentally sparks a war with his criminal neighbour when he tries to silence the relentless barking of his dog.'

Source: Flickerfest.

'She was slipping away. The further she fell, the closer the clouds seemed to come. Wispy transparent slipstreams of white. Cirrus. Pain smashed her head. Floating …

'When investigative journalist Chrissie O’Brian lands a senior job at The Argus, she is desperate to escape the nightmares of her past. Her life has become a daily battle to numb the pain. But her job is something she can do better than anyone else – and the only thing that keeps the memories at bay.

'A face-off on the waterfront between the unions and big business is just the kind of story to get her career back on track. But after a dockworker who confided in her turns up dead, Chrissie becomes obsessed with unravelling the truth. When a gruesome threat lands on her desk, it's clear someone is prepared to do anything to stop her. 

'But who is more dangerous – a ruthless enemy or a woman pushed to the edge? Used to fighting her own demons, this is one battle Chrissie is determined not to lose.'

Source: Publisher's blurb.