Cirrus@Austlit

'A mysterious group prepares to carry out a ruthless terrorist attack...

'Geoff Miller, a Melbourne loss adjuster, is investigating a Workers Compensation claimant, suspected of rorting the system. He follows him to a remote Victorian country property where he observes the claimant, and others, on an obstacle course. Whilst videoing the claimant from a distance, Miller realises he's stumbled across a private army or terrorist group, but whilst filming is caught in the act.

'His disappearance causes his employers to contact authorities, which in turn leads to ASIO who are investigating an imminent suspected political assassination of a visiting foreign dignitary. Miller's disappearance appears to connect with their own investigation. There is a thrilling race against time to find Miller and prevent the assassination attempt.' (Publication summary)

'Clement Wragge is sometimes remembered as the colourful and combative Australasian meteorologist whose use of people's names to nickname cyclones and storms in the 1890s caught on around the world. A century after his death, runners in an annual race up the UK's highest mountain, Ben Nevis in Scotland, celebrate his superhuman achievement of scaling the icy mountain daily in order to record weather data so as to pave the way for a permanent observatory.

'This is the first full biography of Wragge's life - the strange story of a self-taught meteorologist from England's industrial Midlands, a 19th century scientist with 21st century anxieties. He trusted in physics perfected by a Creator and held profound fears about the big picture for humanity, yet Wragge had an irrepressible faith in human ingenuity to overcome.' (Publication summary)

(Publication summary)

'After a huge and unexpected windfall from a previous operation, Harry Stevens, ex-Australian SAS Major and undercover Commonwealth Police operative, has ordered a new and bigger catamaran to be built in South Africa. When it's ready, together with a diverse and changing crew, he leaves the violence and horror of the Lord Howe Island operation far behind as they first visit peaceful Vanuatu. Then it's off on the long voyage to South Africa to pick-up the new boat. Along the way, the perennial trouble-magnet survives encounters with an old friend, a giant crocodile, as well as sundry storms.

'Harry's South African introduction includes a close encounter with thieves, then a deadly boat hi-jacking operation, where violence strikes a bit too close for comfort.

'With the new boat finally underfoot, Harry surprises the crew by making a slight detour to the south on the trip back to Oz. On an icy, remote southern island, Harry and crew have the first of several nasty encounters with a flotilla of Japanese whalers plying their foul and illegal trade in Australian waters.

'But annoyance turns to puzzlement as the intensity of the encounters escalates to relentless and lethal violence. Why are the whalers so upset with Harry and crew? Could there be a hidden agenda behind their naked aggression? As the body count grows, natural and other forces are brought into play, leading one of the crew to comment, 'Next time you go on holiday, Harry, we'll stay behind.'' (Publication summary)

'Mrs Bigelow has no trouble finding someone to kill her ghastly husband. But not wishing to pay blackmail to the killer for the rest of her life she now must dispose of him. She finds a most ingenious way of doing it and looks like getting away with it ... until Hodgkiss gets on the job.

'A man held prisoner in an unfinished building desperately draws what he can see from his window, hoping that someone will work out where he is being held. That someone is Hodgkiss who helps Sergeant Sanderson find the captive in spite of some fast footwork from workmen who use an ingenious method to confuse which floor is which.

'When a family moves house the wife accidentally leaves behind some valuable jewellery behind. But the new owners don't know anything about the missing jewels, or so it seems until Hodgkiss gets involved.

'The Mayor of Kanundda plans to blackmail a government minister with naughty photos of his wife. He locked them in his safe but when he went to take them out later they had disappeared. He was the only one with a key and the only one who knew the combination. How did it happen. It took Hodgkiss to uncover the extraordinary method devised by the council's general manager, the devious but desirable Jan Campbell-Jones.' (Publication summary)

'With former Australian SAS Major, Harry Stevens and the Firebird crew heading home from their harrowing, but lucrative Indonesian operation, a call from the Australian PM sees the crew despatched to beautiful Lord Howe Island to investigate some disturbing events.

'How can a beautiful and tranquil sub-tropical paradise have such a rotten core? Harry's disconcerting habit of attracting trouble strikes again as he encounters:

• A wife-beating police officer.....
• A homicidal maniac terrorising young female tourists.....
• A major international smuggling operation, involving stolen uncut gemstones.....
• A very profitable smuggling operation dealing in protected Australian reptiles.....
• Are any of these linked?
• Is putting two of Harry's favourite ladies in serious harm's way justified?
• Can Harry's passion for coming up with complex 'cunning plans', save the ladies?
• And what does one do with a homicidal Police officer in the absence of witnesses and 'smoking gun' evidence?
• Who guards the guardian?
• Doubts and misgivings plague Harry's waking thoughts as the darkest side of humanity increasingly shows its ugliest face.

'At least with the diminutive, but deadly Corrine helping Harry and Jasper, there is possibly a way.' (Publication summary)

'Hodgkiss doesn't miss a trick. Three new adventures of that cranky, obnoxious, insufferable but remarkably observant and astute senior citizen.

'A politician who is about to be 'outed' by the media is persuaded to disappear before he can bring disgrace on his Party. To achieve this a corrupt policeman invents a novel method of identifying a murder victim in the place of the disappeared politician. It was a method that could have worked but for Hodgkiss' intervention.

'A bungling burglar drops a stolen ring in the street after performing a theft-to-order for a friend ... stealing jewellery for an insurance fraud. Unfortunately for him the drama takes place in full view of Pat Strong's town house. So when Pat involves Hodgkiss he decides to take a hand. An advertisement in the local paper is all that's needed to bring the incident to a surprising end.

'Hodgkiss is indisposed when Donald is confronted with another locked room murder puzzle. So Esme accepts the challenge. She visits the crime scene, photographs the suspicious elements, consults her father and they demonstrate to Donald how the murder was done.' (Publication summary)

A disgraced politician plans a complex and bizarre method of taking his own life, hoping to leave wife facing a murder charge. Hodgkiss has to make use of all his powers of imagination to make sense of the few clues left behind and demonstrate how the man managed to kill himself then make the gun disappear.

'When two bodies are found shot dead lying side by side in a park Inspector Donald Burke decides it is very likely murder-suicide. But there are no fingerprints on the gun which is lying on the ground between them. When Hodgkiss begins to look into the family history a very different, dark picture emerges.

'Visiting a country town with his friend Pat Strong, Hodgkiss is soon investigating the death of an unpopular man whose body was found in a motel room with the door barricaded inside by a heavy chest of drawers. Everyone thinks it must have been suicide. But Hodgkiss knows that the locked room scenario can conceal murder ... and this is no exception.

'Hodgkiss, who haunts charity shops in his quest for wristwatches, is baffled when a particular knife he wants to buy disappears mysteriously from the shop's window when the shop is closed and returns just as mysteriously later . When such a knife is used in a murder Hodgkiss knows where to go looking for the killer.' (Publication summary)

'In these five stories all of Hodgkiss' powers of observation are taxed to the full.

'When he saw the killer's cabin cruiser returning to its berth at the marina what was it that Hodgkiss saw that convinced him the man had been involved in the theft of a number of valuable bronzes figures?

'Hodgkiss had never heard of a pocket call until he received one. Then from the few words he overheard he uncovered a conspiracy being planned by greedy politicians and their cronies. The unscrupulous political wheeler-dealers find themselves in all sorts of trouble when a highly confidential email goes astray.

'Hodgkiss' friend Pat Strong answers a call for help from a friend who has been the victim of political skull-duggery and with Hodgkiss' help things are soon put to rights.

'When Hodgkiss friend Pat Strong receives an urgent call for help from an old friend Hodgkiss soon notices inconsistencies in the tale the friend had spun. There was plenty of blood. But whose was it? The unscrupulous Kanundda councillors are desperate to prevent details of their latest crooked money-making scam from reaching the public. So in their efforts to hush it up they threaten the elderly employee in charge of recording all meetings.' (Publication summary)

'Hodgkiss doesn't miss a trick. Three new adventures of that cranky, obnoxious, insufferable but remarkably observant and astute senior citizen.

'One night Hodgkiss sees a rare repeater wrist watch in an antiques shop windows, but next morning when he goes to buy it he finds, to his disappointment, that a woman had just beaten him to it.In his efforts to persuade the woman to sell the watch to him he finds himself in the middle of a mesh of lust, deceit and murder.

'While attending a garage sale Hodgkiss and his friend Pat Strong witness a very one-sided transaction in which an elderly lady is persuaded to sell a collection of valuable stamp albums for a derisory sum. Hodgkiss and Pat decide not to let the matter rest there and their investigation ends with an extraordinary murder.

'Hodgkiss takes a public service job to supplement his pension. In the course of his new duties he sees one of his fellow workers behaving in a puzzling fashion.It is not until a senior public servant is found murdered during his morning commute that Hodgkiss makes sense of what he had seen and uncovers the killer.' (Publication summary)

'Someone is mysteriously stealing from Kanundda Council's new state-of-the-art electronic safes. When a particularly sensitive letter disappears from the safe of the general manager, Jan Campbell-Jones, Jan calls in Edgar Hodgkiss to solve the problem. From a few random observations Hodgkiss finds a remarkable solution that exposes a network of ingenious criminals.

'Hodgkiss and his daughter Esme Burke receive a call for help from an elderly lady, once a friend of the family. But when they arrive things are not as they expected. Hodgkiss' suspicions are aroused by the appearance of the man who claims to be a relative of the timid, frightened woman. Soon he proves the man is not who he claims to be and puts an end to his attempts to steal a collection of valuable clocks.

'When visiting a friend Hodgkiss notices the extraordinary behaviour of a man on the balcony of the flat above where his friend lives. Later, when a body is found in the flat Hodgkiss and Donald lock horns once more over the question, was it suicide or murder, this time with a surprising climax.' (Publication summary)

'Hodgkiss doesn't miss a trick. Three new adventures of that cranky, obnoxious, insufferable but remarkably observant and astute senior citizen.

'The mayor of the notoriously corrupt Kanundda Council and his cronies have a massive new development planned that will make millions for them. But one of the few honest members on council gets wind of the scheme and arranges a meeting with the general manager, Jan Campbell-Jones, to brief her on the plot. But the meeting never happens and both the councillor and Jan disappear. Hodgkiss becomes involved, but the trail has gone cold and his fears for Jan's safety are soon realised.

'Summoned once again to the little rural town of Narralong to give evidence in an inquest, Hodgkiss is again confronted with a corpse, this time in the next room at the motel where he is staying. But was it suicide or was the woman murdered. Hodgkiss' acute powers of observation soon solve the riddle.

'The new editor of Kanundda's local free newspaper The Star has been treading on some very tender toes belonging to very influential and ruthless people. Then when she is found dead, locked in her office, it looks like suicide to Detective Inspector Donald Burke who is called in to investigate ... until Hodgkiss is involved.' (Publication summary)

'Hodgkiss doesn't miss a trick. Three new adventures of that cranky, obnoxious, insufferable but remarkably observant and astute senior citizen.

'Hodgkiss is witness to an unpleasant scene where an outraged wife threatens her husband's mistress in front of the diners in a crowded Chinese restaurant. When the mistress is viciously murdered the wife moves to the top of Detective Inspector Donald Burke's list of suspects. Donald is not pleased when Hodgkiss demonstrates once again that his investigation is running down the wrong track.

'One of the regular dog-walkers Hodgkiss meets at the local off-leash oval has written a will in favour of his dog. When the man dies his brother inherits the dog together with many responsibilities that prove rather burdensome if he is to enjoy the other benefits of the will. Soon Hodgkiss fears that the dog, a special friend of his own dog, Rupert, is being abused. When he starts to investigate his worst fears are soon realised.

'When Donald is confronted by determined criminals who have carefully prepared alibis to throw him off the trail he needs more than a little luck before he can get out the handcuffs. Hodgkiss and his companion Pat Strong, fortunately are on hand to provide the vital information needed to show the criminals were at the wrong place at the wrong time.'(Publication summary)

'Hodgkiss doesn't miss a trick. Three new adventures of that cranky, obnoxious, insufferable but remarkably observant and astute senior citizen.

'When Hodgkiss' daughter, Esme, and son-in-law, Detective Inspector Donald Burke, present him with a puppy from the local pound their timing could not have been worse. There is open warfare between dog owners who exercise their pets off-leash at the local oval and the sporting groups that use it. The cause of the problem ... dog owners who don't pick up. So when Hodgkiss arrives at the oval to begin his new exercise regime he finds himself knee deep in the problem. And things come to a head when the murdered body of a senior officer of the corrupt Kanundda Council is found nearby.

'Two greedy young ne'er-do-wells plan to rob their step-father by stealing the passwords to his bank accounts from his computer. But their bungling attempt leaves a clear trail for Hodgkiss to follow.

'When Hodgkiss and his friend Pat Strong visit a local garage sale they overhear a single angry phrase muttered by a man as he was leaving. Later, when the Kanundda Council agrees to hold a display of valuable books at the local library the expert who is to provide rare books for the display disappears and later is found murderer.' (Publication summary)

'Hodgkiss doesn't miss a trick. Three new adventures of that cranky, obnoxious, insufferable but remarkably observant and astute senior citizen.

'Hodgkiss and his son-in-law Detective Donald Burke are playing a round of golf when a savage storm hits sending them running for cover. But the same storm provides the cover for a cruel opportunistic murder and Hodgkiss is soon involved.

'Hodgkiss and Pat Strong were hoping for a quiet week away at Pat's seaside town house. But even there Hodgkiss can't escape the Kanundda Council's long tentacles of corruption ... this time in the form of a rort involving toxic filling being dumped in new playing fields.

'When Hodgkiss hears that a friend of Pat's has bought an expensive painting from a particular art gallery in Grattan he is keen to see the new acquisition. The behaviour of the gallery's manager soon arouses his suspicions and he decides to take an interest in the new purchase.'(Publication summary)

'Hodgkiss doesn't miss a trick. Three new adventures of that cranky, obnoxious, insufferable but remarkably observant and astute senior citizen.

'Greedy killers think they can get away with a perfect murder by copying the story line of a famous mystery novel. But they are so utterly incompetent that Hodgkiss and son-in-law, Detective Inspector Donald Burke, soon see through their plot and in no time at all Donald is bringing out the handcuffs.

'Hodgkiss' friend, Pat Strong, involves him in a treasure hunt when a young relation of Pat's is left a valuable diamond ring by an elderly grandmother who has followed her usual practice of hiding the present so the girl has to search for it. But granny dies and it is up to Hodgkiss to interpret the clues left in the granny's last video.

'When a greedy developer makes a clumsy attempt to compromise an honest council officer his go-between in the devious operation finds himself facing a murder charge. But Hodgkiss, on his way to the local off-leash park with his dog, Rupert, just happens to be in the right place at the wrong time for the killer.' (Publication summary)

'Having married her childhood sweetheart, Princess Alia's world begins to disintegrate. Her nine-year-old relationship with her husband, self-made engineering genius Alex Glandore is failing. Espionage is uncovered in his firm and at the Palace, threatening the Realm and its people.

'The culprits are attempting to construct a new world order and are willing to use force to gain control of countries, politicians and head of states. The looming threat provokes revolt in Europe and at home in Rubinia. Alia and Alex's concerns for their country force them to join ranks in order to overcome the rebels - particularly for the sake of their eight year old son and heir, Stephan.

'From rugged Alps to the sophisticated metropolis of Washington DC, readers are immersed in a mix of romance, suspense and action, with a cast of characters ranging from the Royal family and people of Rubinia to the President of the United States.' (Publication summary)

'Valerie arrived in Geneva to work for United Nations in 1948 and soon became a simultaneous interpreter in English, French and Spanish and a Russian translator. There were few conference interpreters in those days and they were treated like film stars, pampered and indulged, and very much in demand. The profession has changed enormously since then, especially recently with the advent of Covid-19 when conferences take place via Zoom. This book describes her life in the old days of cocktail parties, evening dress and jewellery. It also describes what it was like in Australia in 1979 when she came to live here, having fallen in love with an Australian UN delegate. 

'In Melbourne she met the most handsome man she had ever encountered, who came to repair her gas stove. In Sydney she fell in love with the didgeridoo and in Darwin with Mindil Market and the sunset. She was dazzled by the beautiful, brightly coloured birds and the magnificent seascapes but found barbecue etiquette a challenge. In this book, she explains why being able to do headstands in the shower is important, why taking a bath is unhygienic, why flowers are sinful and unfaithful and why planes and boats are unable to travel faster.'

Source: Publisher's blurb.