Cirrus@Austlit

'A woman lies dead after tumbling down the stairs of a Cairns townhouse. Did she fall or was she pushed? A young man is stabbed to death in a fight in his brother’s kitchen. The remains of a baby are unearthed from behind an abandoned house. It’s all in a day’s work for Detective Cass Diamond. And what seem at first separate incidents may have a thread linking them. As Cass and her team, now including Detective Jo Murphy from the Cairns Drug Squad, delve into the background of the cases, they find unexpected threats, some of which lurk deep in the tropical rainforest surrounding the town, and some that take human form.' (Publication summary)

'As an abortion provider for more than forty years, and an advocate for abortion law reform and improved abortion services for more than fifty, I approached this book with alacrity. Around one hundred thousand abortions are performed in Australia every year, yet abortion is still not easily talked or written about. I felt that a non-fiction work of nearly three hundred pages on the topic, by a person who had experienced abortion, would be a welcome addition to existing literature, something that other people, contemplating or experiencing abortion, might absorb themselves in.' (Introduction)

'In this fictional but frank account of Sydney's medical profession, Caroline de Costa explores the possibilities, risks and implications of human reproductive cloning, with the reminder that though the techniques may currently be banned, the technology to develop human cloning is already right here - in a lab not far from you.' (Publication summary) 

'It seems a perfect beach in tropical north Queensland, yet a sign marks the site where fifteen Aboriginal people were massacred more than a century before. Then on a sunny morning in 2002 the body of a young Aboriginal woman washes up on the sand. Accident … or murder?

'Close by lives Cairns forensic pathologist Leah Rookwood, on the island handed down through four generations of Rookwoods. As Leah’s colleague Detective Leslie Fernando investigates the modern- day death, Leah discovers some dubious history in her own family. Are the distant events and the current tragedy linked?'

Source : publisher's blurb

'Funny and poignant stories from the labour ward and from the frontline of campaigns for women's reproductive rights, from Australia's best known obstetrician.

''We never train women in Sydney,' Caroline de Costa was told in 1974 when she applied to become a junior registrar in obstetrics and gynaecology. She and her husband packed their bags and their children, and headed for Dublin.

'When Caroline first started in medicine, being an unmarried mother was frowned on, cane toads were used for pregnancy tests, and giving birth was much riskier than it is today. Her funny and poignant stories of bringing babies into the world show that, while much has changed, women still work hard and it remains a bloody business. A birth plan is no guarantee of a normal birth (whatever that is).

'Men have always wanted to control women's bodies, and Caroline has been instrumental in giving Australian women of all backgrounds the opportunity to resist, and to choose when and how they have babies. Her behind-the-scenes stories reveal it's often the little things that win a campaign.'

Source : publisher's blurb

'A young Asian woman lies in a pool of blood in a Cairns motel. Transferred to hospital, she dies before she can tell her story. Detective Cass Diamond and her team are soon on the case.

'The third Cass Diamond mystery explores sex trafficking and abortion, teenage emotions and adult mischief, in a story as densely branched as the rainforest itself. Caroline de Costa holds her readers captive until the very last word.'

Source: Publisher's blurb.

'Weaving together a story of race, ethnicity, environmental politics and intrigue, Caroline de Costa sets her heroine in the lush rainforest, the sparkling seas and the solitary inland country of North Queensland that she knows so well. The story twists and turns, leaving the reader guessing, then guessing again…'

Source: Publisher's blurb.

'Set in Queensland, this debut crime novel Double Madness by Caroline de Costa, takes us into a sordid underbelly of psycho-sexual depravity.

'As local residents and authorities in Far North Queensland assess the damage in the aftermath of Cyclone Yasi, a woman's body is found in bizarre circumstances deep in the rainforest.

'Cass Diamond of Cairns CIB is on the team investigating the murder of fashionista Odile Janvier and it's not long before she uncovers a disturbing connection between the victim and the local medical profession.' (Publication summary)

'The girl lay at the edge of the beach, lapped by the incoming tide. Her long dark hair was bleached gold at the tips, and her toe nails were painted an iredescent blue that matched the Ulysses butterfles circling above her...But who was she, and what had brought her to the remote part of Far North Queensland, across from Rookwood Island? ' (Publisher's blurb)