Cirrus@Austlit

'September 2012 The crime would have been no less vile had Jill Meagher been a 40-year-old shift worker in Warrnambool or a teenage student from Frankston or any other female abducted, raped, murdered and dumped in a hastily dug grave beside a commuter shortcut. But certain facts gave her violation and death a particular, heart-sickening quality that felt personal.' (Introduction)

'Imagine that you are a six-year-old child. One day, you get a sore throat and a headache and start to feel generally icky. Your parents put you to bed. You don’t get better. Within a few days, you cannot move your legs and your back has begun to curve. You have caught an infectious disease known as poliomyelitis or infantile paralysis. It is a virus that attacks mainly children. There is no known cure. You might die. If you survive, you will spend the rest of your life as a cripple, able to walk only with your legs strapped into contraptions of steel and leather. You will be the child, the one that every primary school has, who clumps around in callipers, unable to run and skip and join in the other children’s games. Worst of all, you will become an object of pity.' (Introduction)

'On the Westgate Bridge, behind them a flat in Altona, a dead woman, a girl really, dirty hair, dyed red, pale roots, she was stabbed too many times to count, stomach, chest, back, face.

'Thus begins Peter Temple’s Truth, the first crime novel to win Australia’s most prestigious literary award, the Miles Franklin.' (Introduction)

A series of short pieces orginally published in the Monthly.

'Featuring politicians, socialites, film stars, artists, entrepreneurs and sporting legends, these portraits capture their subjects in a single, fleeting moment, when paths crossed and personalities collided.' (Trove record)