Cirrus@Austlit

'There were five now. The mugger, the sex offender, the wife-beater, the drug-dealer. And of course, Peter. Jason hadn't needed a gun to kill Peter.

'Jason Ennis doesn't understand why the world is such a confusing place. Why it's so difficult to read between the lines, so hard to understand what people want, such a struggle to fit in. Not that he isn't trying as he works a dead-end job and chips away at a degree that's going nowhere.

'But good things come to those who wait. Sometimes, when he least expects it, he gets a chance to make a real difference. To make the world a better place. By removing someone else from it. Someone who doesn't fit in with his standards of behaviour, someone who reminds him of how they scarred him as a child.

'Scarred is not for the squeamish. A poignant debut about serial killers on the streets of Sydney, it explores the addictiveness of vengeance and the tragic mistakes made by the misguided.'

Source: Publisher's blurb.

'The statue of Saint Menaus had been the source of controversy amongst the townspeople for centuries. Some worshipped at the foot of the biblical monument, while others dared not approach it, frightened by generations of folklore about the saint who had succumbed to Satan. The young earned their rite of passage into adulthood upon hearing of the saint’s sins, and only if they refrained from repeating the details and evoking the troubled spirit.

'A bond now exists to unite all men on earth: The Internet - and Saint Menaus is ready to command his silent army throughout the web. None is more devout than Mr Winter Jeffrey. His feverish evangelism flourishes in the stealth of the net, where old crimes play out in new ways. No messy blood trails. No fleeing from crime scenes. Immune from the reach of traditional policing. A place where identities are lost in online ghettos with dial-up vulnerability. All Saint Menaus needs is a chat-room handle.

Jesus had his disciples. God had his saints. But what if the devil didn’t work alone? What if he, too, had a helper? The original devil’s advocate. Satan’s very own servant.

Saint Menace: the Patron Saint of Terror.' (Publisher's blurb)