Cirrus@Austlit

'In an act of revenge, six female teachers who survived the Beslan siege plan to kidnap four adult children of the Chechnyan terrorists.'

Source : publication summary

'An unflinchingly honest, thought-provoking account of growing up without a historySandy McCutcheon, one of Australia's most popular national broadcasters, was adopted into a respectable, well-off family, but it was one in which he never felt at home. His yearning for acceptance was matched by an instinct to rebel, and by frustration with his parents' refusal to acknowledge his adoption. He did not learn the truth about his birth for fifty years, and when he did the circumstances were so convoluted as to defy belief. Eventually he discovered a family with uncanny parallels between its generations, where history has been repeated not once but several times.Sandy's extraordinary story sheds light on things that affect us whether we're adopted or not: on how memory helps shape our sense of self, on the importance of not harbouring resentment, on the way the heart knows things that the mind does not. And the way life never stops delivering surprises . . .'  (Publication summary)

'In a marketplace in Afghanistan, a son watches his father die at the hands of the Taliban. Karim Mazari knows he must flee his homeland if he is to have any chance of survival, but at a time of international uncertainty and terror, compassion can be hard to find. But a passport and a ticket to Australia can be bought...'

Source: Publisher's blurb.

'In a wintry graveyard, a young man looks death in the eye and does not live to tell the secrets he holds. In Russia, the opening of a dusty archive reveals clues about a deadly game which has not yet reached its conclusion. In an isolated farmhouse, an old man is kept prisoner while his captors try to extract vital information from his rambling mind. Into this sticky web of deceit and intrigue stumbles Martin teschmaker, a newly redundant insurance investigator who has just been deserted by his wife. Seeking relief from his mid-life crisis, teschmaker contacts an old girlfriend, Jane Morris. With that one phone call he is plunged into an underworld where nothing and no one can be taken at face value. As he attempts to remove the masks, teschmaker realises the truth is more complex and more dangerous than he could ever have imagined. And somehow he has to bring this deadly game to its conclusion, and survive.'

Source : publisher's blurb