Cirrus@Austlit

'Brisbane 1999. It's hot. Stormy. Dangerous. The waters of the Brisbane River are rising. The rains won't stop. People's nerves are on edge. And then . . .

'A body is found.

'And then another.

'And another.

'A string of seemingly ritualised but gruesome murders. All the victims are men. Affluent. Guys with nice houses, wives and kids at private schools. All have had their throats cut. Tabloid headlines shout, THE VAMPIRE KILLER STRIKES AGAIN!

'Detective Sergeant Lara Ocean knows the look. The 'my-life-will-never-be-the-same-again look'. She's seen it too many times on too many faces. Telling a wife her husband won't be coming home. Ever again. Telling her the brutal way he was murdered. That's a look you never get used to.

'Telling a mother you need her daughter to come to the station for questioning. That's another look she doesn't want to see again.

'And staring into the eyes of a murderer, yet doubting you've got it right. That's the worst look of all - the one you see in the mirror. Get it right, you're a hero and the city is a safer place. Get it wrong and you destroy a life. And a killer remains free. Twenty years down the track, Lara Ocean will know the truth.'

Source: Publisher's blurb.

'Darian Richards is an ex-cop, a good one. He did whatever it took to solve a crime and stop the bad guy. Whatever it took! But after sixteen years as the head of Victoria's Homicide Squad, he'd had enough of promising victims' families he'd find the answers they needed. He had to walk away to save his sanity.'

'Now Police Commissioner Copeland Walsh has tracked Darian down. He needs him to help clear an old case. The death of Isobel Vine. The coroner gave an open finding. An open finding that never cleared the cloud of doubt that hovered over four young cops who were present the night Isobel died.'

'Twenty-five years later, one of those young cops is next in line to become police commissioner, so Copeland Walsh needs the case closed once and for all. In his mind there is only one man for the job. One man who would be completely independent. One man who has never bowed to political or police pressure. One man who knows how to get the job done - Darian Richards.'

'Darian is going back to stir a hornet's nest. But once Darian is on a case he won't back off tracking down evil, no matter who he has to take down.' (Source: Publisher's website)

'One man pushed Darian Richards to the edge. The man he couldn't catch. The Train Rider.

'As Victoria's top homicide investigator, Darian Richards spent years catching killers. The crimes of passion, of anger, of revenge ... they were easy. It was the monsters who were hard.

'Someone was taking girls. At first he'd keep them a week then give them back. Darian warned that wouldn't last. It didn't. From then on, their bodies were never found. Girls kept disappearing. All they had in common was the fact they'd last been seen on a train.

'The ever-rising list of the vanished broke Darian. Forced him to walk away. Now, retired, watching the Noosa River flow by, the nightmares had finally stopped. Darian was never going back.

'Then three girls go missing from Queensland trains. Darian knows that the killer is playing him. He has a choice to make. But when the decision means a girl will die, there is no choice. He has to stop this man once and for all. Forever.' (Publisher's blurb)

A unique crime collection that brings together Tony Cavanaugh's powerful debut novel PROMISE and its critically acclaimed follow-up DEAD GIRL SING in one must-read volume.

'Top Homicide cop Darian Richards has been seeking out monsters for too long. He has promised one too many victim's families he will find the answers they need and it's taken its toll. After surviving a gunshot wound to the head he calls it quits and retires to the Sunshine Coast in an attempt to leave the demons behind. But he should have realised, there are demons everywhere and no place is safe.

'In these two gripping stand-alone novels, Darian Richards shows that when he makes up his mind to hunt out a killer, he'll stop at nothing to find them and deal with them ... his way!' (Publication summary)

A gripping short crime story featuring Darian Richards by Australia's 2012 bestselling debut crime writer Tony Cavanaugh. Includes previews of his two full-length novels.

Darian Richards is a retired homicide investigator. He was one of the best. But chasing monsters eventually took its toll and he quit the force to sit on a jetty on the Noosa River. Or so he planned.

After years of service, witnessing the best and the worst of policing, Darian has made up his own mind about justice. Whenever a horrific crime is committed debate rages about the nature of punishment. As far as the law is concerned justice doesn't condone revenge, but tell that to the family of a murder victim or to the woman you can't protect. Darian Richards knows that in the real world, when your hands are tied, sometimes revenge is the only justice.

"The Soft Touch" takes you deep into Darian's past, to the life lessons that made him who he is. He is a man you want looking out for you not looking for you.

Source: Publisher's Blurb

'Brisbane Writers Festival celebrates stories of all shapes and sizes. With the help of Twitter and a brilliant collection of 50 writers from around the globe, the Many Writers, One Story project hopes to put together a very Brisbane tale told in 140 character bite-sized pieces. Where will the story go? What twists will it take? Follow its progress from Tuesday 17 July [2012] ... or on Twitter by following the hashtag #BWF50.'

Source: Brisbane Writers Festival website, http://www.bwf.org.au/
Sighted: 14/08/2012

'Top Homicide cop Darian Richards has been seeking out monsters for too long. He has promised one too many victim's families he will find the answers they need and it's taken its toll. After surviving a gunshot wound to the head he calls it quits and retires to the Sunshine Coast in an attempt to leave the demons behind. But he should have realised, there are demons everywhere and no place is safe. A serial killer is prowling the Sunshine Coast area and Darian tries to ignore the fact his experience could make a difference hunting him down. All he wants is to sit at the end of his jetty on the Noosa River and ignore the fact that girls from the area have vanished over the past fourteen months.' (Libraries Australia).

'In the heart of the Australian outback, a baby vanished into the night. A nation and the world became fascinated by the mystery, curious that the mother claimed a dingo took her baby, intrigued that perhaps she was in fact a murderer. The story that unfolded has captivated people like no other event. Lindy Chamberlain found herself swept up in a wave of overwhelming odds as she was accused of murder, found guilty and put in jail for life with hard labour.'

Source: Libraries Australia. (Sighted 09/12/2009).

'Staff in an emergency department of a large Australian hospital have become addicted to the adrenalin rush they experience while dealing with life and death emergencies.'

Source: Screen Australia.

'There are strange goings on at Brindabella Homestead. Every time someone visits the house, they seem to come to a sticky end. Who is committing these horrible murders?

'Could it be glamorous socialite Mrs Peacock, owner of Brindabella? Perhaps it is her step-daughter, the lovely Miss Scarlet? Scarlet's boyfriend, Professor Plum, has charm but is he to be trusted? The family cook, Mrs White, seems a kindly old soul. But looks can deceive! Colonel Mustard's fine war record would suggest an upright gentleman. But is he? And the good Reverend Green? Surely a man of the cloth couldn't be a killer ... or could he?

'The answer is that any of them could be the killer and the task of finding out who is the criminal rests with you, the audience. In your investigations you will be assisted by the local sleuth, Detective Sergeant Bogong. Help will also come from a studio audience who are able to quiz the characters about their movements and their alibis.'

Source: Crawford Productions publicity material (held in the Crawford Collection at the AFI Research Collection).

A mixture of live-action, puppetry, animation, and documentary, Lift Off centred on a group of children who lived in the same neighbourhood and whose imaginations made their environment a world of fun and excitement. However, the program also explored issues such as pain, loneliness, jealousy, and anger. The program was aimed at three-year-old to eight-year-old viewers (as defined by Harvard University developmental psychologist Howard Gardner), and was linked to school curricula through the Curriculum Corporation of Australia.

Two series tracing the ambitions of Sim, who longs to be a clown.

In series one:

'Fifteen-year-old Sim wants to be a clown. His third set of foster parents think he's as nutty as an Australian fruit cake. So he runs away, joins an outback rodeo, then a travelling circus. He is taught the art of clowning by a former clown, Anatole, an iron-willed Frenchman who is no longer able to perform. When Anatole returns to Paris, Sim follows, and is finally given the chance to perform at the famous Winter Circus'.

In series two:

'Sim is now a clown at the Winter Circus in Paris. Ambitious and determined to become a great clown, Sim becomes intrigued with the 'modern' circus routines pioneered by Circus Oz and Cirque du Soleil. When Sim suddenly inherits a share in the Rathnow Circus back in Australia, he has a chance to create his own 'suitcase' style of circus that is unique to his own character and experience.'

Source: Screen Australia. (Sighted: 13/11/2012)

During a tabloid television show Iya Zetnick exposes Joe Mueller as the Nazi war criminal who killed her family. Mueller is arrested and taken to trial but eventually declared innocent of the charge. Distraught, Iya breaks into his house and kills herself in front of his family. Although Mueller's daughter has stood by her father she becomes increasingly suspicious, and eventually begins to realise that the allegations might be true. When she confronts her father he admits his role in the murders and she rejects him.

A children's television series, Zoo Family followed the adventures of Dr David Mitchell, veterinary surgeon at Melbourne Zoo, and his children Susie and Nick (all of whom live within zoo grounds). Additional characters include the head groundsman, a young vet graduate, the zoo manager, and the zoo trustees. According to Moran, in his Guide to Australian TV Series,

The latter are perpetually scheming over trust money under their control and it is left to the others to ensure that animals and enclosures are maintained. Beyond this human family, the larger family of the series is animals in the zoo. Each episode features a particular animal or group of animals in the zoo. Successive episodes concern such events as the discovery and treatment of sore eyes on a seal, taking delivery of male and female cheetahs, and building a new enclosure for a bull elephant.

The series, Moran concludes, 'had the solid, even dull, worthiness that is so much a feature of Crawford's.'

A daily television drama series set in the fictional Melbourne suburb of Erinsborough, Neighbours chronicles the lives of the residents of Ramsay Street. The series initially revolved around three families: the Ramsays (at number 24 Ramsay Street), the Robinsons (at number 26), and the Clarkes (at number 28). The scope of the series has since broadened to include new Ramsay Street familes.

This Ten Network serial--which Moran describes in his Guide to Australian TV Series as 'an eccentric series that might have been more at home on the ABC'--followed the travails of two branches of the Carson family: patriarch and lawyer Geoffrey Carson (and his at-home son and daughter) and his widowed daughter-in-law and fellow lawyer Jennifer (and her three children).

Geoffrey and Jennifer often meet in court, usually in oppositional roles in the same case, which underlies the tension between Geoffrey's outdated patriarchal attitude and Jennifer's more liberated outlook. Moran also notes that the sets ('sumptuously heavy Victorian interiors') tended to emphasise the undercurrent of nineteenth-century patriarchy running beneath the series.

Carson's Law employed the soap-opera convention of self-contained episodes for guest stars and ongoing story arcs for regular characters, though, in Moran's terms, 'it tended to use its guest stories as a means of furthering the personal and continuing narratives'.

Though popular in Melbourne (and less popular in Sydney), the program was not renewed after the second series, and ended in 1983.

Set in the Melbourne suburb of Camberwell during World War Two, The Sullivans follows the lives of Dave and Grace Sullivan and their children John, Tom, Dave, and Kitty. However, the storylines reach beyond the immediate Sullivan family, allowing viewers to see their extended family, friends, and neighbours also struggle through everyday war-time life.

The series also featured war-action sequences involving various characters. Arguably the most dramatic moment, and the event that effectively became a turning point in the series, was the death of Grace Sullivan in a London air raid. The series finished after a seven-year run, by which point most of the original cast had left the series and the remaining characters had settled into a new life in the post-war era.