Cirrus@Austlit

'Gareth Grenway wasn't all he seemed, but Cliff Hardy was used to that. What he wasn't used to was the shadowy world Greenway leads him into: neurosurgeons, mental patients, AIDS sufferes, all negotiating a landscape of dreams and delusions. An old firend of Hardy's ends up dead while Hardy chases the shadows, catching some, losing others.

'The accompanying stories find Hardy on more familiar ground. When organised crime, political corruption and the Australian army are involved, Hardy battles the odds. But when it comes to a man-to-man contest, put your money on Hardy to win.' (Publication summary)

'Politician Peter January is having trouble staying alive so he hires Cliff Hardy to help him. Hardy dislikes the role of politician's 'security consultant' but he dislikes bombers, hitmen and hate-mailers even more.

'Protecting January leads to protecting his assistant, Trudie Bell, which is a more enjoyable assignment. It also takes Hardy to Washington DC where the threats are real and the rules are different.

'To stand close to January is to stand close to danger and corruption, but there are even greater evils and Hardy cannot back away...' (Publication summary)

'Is brilliant young film maker Carmel Wise the innocent victim of gangland violence or is she enmeshed in a pornography racket as the press and the police imply? Carmel's businessman father hires Cliff Hardy to find the real reason 'the video girl' was shot dead outside the Greenwich Apartments in Kings Cross.

'Hardy follows a trail which is broken but clear - houses and flats, with the power on and the rent paid, stand empty; photographs and other document lead to Lionel Darcy, owner of the Champagne Cabaret; banks and business houses will supply just enough information to keep Hardy warm.

'The tail takes him to the sunny perninsula, leafy Lane Cove and the industrial waterfront. Hardy finds that every question and every answer had to be paid for in pain and fear. nd to some questions there may be no answers at all...' (Publication summary)

'Cherry Wilder follows the plight of another long-lost crew on the distant planet Rhomary. Two hundred years after their spacecraft crashed, the descendants of the original crew have lost most of Earth's technology. The survivors are engaged on a triple search— for another Earth spacecraft that has crashed, and for the two principal alien inhabitants of the planet, the huge aquatic Vail and the Shapechangers, who can assume human form. When all three have been discovered, after some interesting character interplays, Wilder seems to be unsure as to how to conclude the novel and leaves matters without resolving them.'

Source:

'Lost in the Depths of Space', Canberra Times, 10 January 1987, p.14.

'Cliff Hardy starts out to help a friend but before long he's looking for an enemy - William Mountain: a boozer, TV scriptwriter, would-be novelist who is missing and searching for adventure. Mountain's adventure is Hardy's 'case' which rapidly becomes a case he would rather not have. Mountain is the dealer in a deadly game and the hands he deals become more and more bizarre...' (Publication summary)

'A client happens to fall from the twentieth story of a building; a rock star goes missing; an erotic Mongol scroll vanishes; a film star has a problem that has nothing to do with creativity - it's all in a day's work for Cliff Hardy.

'Yachts dance on the sparkling waters of the harbour, and the back alleys are busy; the city's high and low classes go about their daily business. But nothing really surprises Hardy; and, for a hundred and twenty-five a day (plus expenses), he'll provide a few surprises of his own...' (Publication summary)

'Tim Winton's first Miles Franklin-winner, Shallows revolves around the ruthless commerce of whaling, and Queenie Cookson, who joins the fight to end it.
'Whales have always been the life-force of Angelus, a small town on the south coast of Western Australia. Their annual passing defines the rhythms of a life where little changes, and the town depends on their carcasses. So when the battle begins on the beaches outside their town, and when Queenie Cookson, a local girl, joins the Greenies to make amends for the crimes of her whaling ancestors, it can only throw everything into chaos.' (Publication summary)