Cirrus@Austlit

'AN INCREDIBLE VICTORY BUT AT A TERRIBLE PRICE...

'Against all the odds, Jack West Jr found the Three Secret Cities but at a heartbreaking cost.

'His beloved daughter Lily, it appeared, was slaughtered by Sphinx in a cruel ancient ritual.

'TO THE MOUNTAINS AND THE FALL!

'With his rivals far ahead of him, Jack must now get to one of the five iron mountains-two of which have never been found-and perform a mysterious feat known only as 'The Fall'.

'Although what is this object on the moon that is connected to it?

'A NEW PLAYER ARRIVES

'Amid all this, Jack will discover that a new player has entered the race, a general so feared by the four legendary kingdoms they had him locked away in their deepest dungeon.

'Only now this general has escaped and he has a horrifying plan of his own...' (Publication summary)

'When fiery and idealistic Kitty O’Kane escapes the crushing poverty of Dublin’s tenements, she’s determined that no one should ever suffer like she did. As she sets out to save the world, she finds herself at the forefront of events that shaped the early twentieth century. While working as a maid, she survives the sinking of the Titanic. As a suffragette in New York’s Greenwich Village, she’s jailed for breaking storefront windows. And traveling war-torn Europe as a journalist, she’s at the Winter Palace when it’s stormed by the Bolsheviks. Ultimately she returns to her homeland to serve as a nurse in the Irish Civil War.

'During Kitty’s remarkable journey, she reunites with her childhood sweetheart, Tom Doyle, but Tom doesn’t know everything about her past—a past that continues to haunt her. Will Kitty accept that before she can save everyone else, she needs to find a way to save herself? Or will the sins of her past stop her from pursuing her own happiness?'

(Source: publisher's blurb)

'A man-made secret location designed to host tests of classified experiments, Hell Island doesn't appear on any maps. But when all contact is lost with this mystery island, four crack special force units are brought in - can anything prepare them for the horror of what they will find there?' (Publication summary)

'The thrilling international bestseller from Australia's favourite novelist author of the Scarecrow series and the Jack West Jr series with new novel The Three Secret Cities out now.

'Deep in the jungle of Peru, the hunt for a legendary Incan idol is under way - an idol that in the present day could be used as the basis for a terrifying new weapon.

'Guiding a US Army team is Professor William Race, a young linguist who must translate an ancient manuscript which contains the location of the idol.

'What they find is an ominous stone temple, sealed tight. They open it - and soon discover that some doors are meant to remain unopened...

'Fans of Clive Cussler, Tom Clancy and Michael Crichton will love Matthew Reilly.' (Publication summary)

'HELL HATH NO FURY LIKE FOUR KINGDOMS SCORNED. THE HUNT FOR JACK WEST JR HAS BEGUN.

'A SHADOW WORLD BEHIND THE REAL WORLD

'When Jack West Jr won the Great Games, he threw the four legendary kingdoms into turmoil.

'A WORLD WITH ITS OWN HISTORY, RULES AND PRISONS

'Now these dark forces are coming after Jack ... in ruthless fashion.

'THAT IS REACHING INTO OUR WORLD ... EXPLOSIVELY

'With the end of all things rapidly approaching, Jack must find the Three Secret Cities, three incredible lost cities of legend.

'It's an impossible task by any reckoning, but Jack must do it while he is being hunted ...'

Source: Publisher's blurb.

'It's 1908 and the Golden Cube of the Sun God, safely hidden in Peru for over 500 years, has been stolen. Made of pure gold, the cursed object has the power to control the minds of men - and bloody revenge is its aim.

The most powerful man in South America - Bishop Francisco - has succumbed to its torment. A man has been crucified. Innocents are being murdered. The Peruvian army has been mobilised. Everyone is afraid.

Only one man is immune to its spreading evil: Wilson Downling, the Overseer, a man transported from the future who must carry out a series of vital missions encoded in the Dead Sea Scrolls.

His latest assignment had seemed simple enough: assist the hapless American explorer Hiram Bingham to discover the lost Inca city of Machu Picchu. But history is wildly off course and everything is different now.

The fate of the world is at stake ...' (Publisher's website)

'At an abandoned Soviet base in the Arctic, the battle to save the world has begun...

The Secret Base
'It is a top-secret base known only as Dragon Island. A long-forgotten relic of the Cold War, it houses a weapon of terrible destructive force, a weapon that has just been re-activated...

A Renegade Army
'When Dragon Island is seized by a brutal terrorist force calling itself the Army of Thieves, the fate of the world hangs in the balance, and there are no crack units close enough to get there in time to stop the Army setting off the weapon.

One Small Team
'Except, that is, for a small equipment-testing team up in the Arctic led by a Marine captain named Schofield, call-sign SCARECROW. It's not a strike force; just a handful of Marines and civilians. It's not equipped to attack a fortified island held by a vicious army. But Scarecrow will lead the team in anyway, because someone has to.

'The ultimate hero is back, facing the ultimate army of villains.' (From the publisher's website.)

'The year is 1967 and the world teeters on the brink of nuclear holocaust as the Cold War goes relentlessly on. On a beautiful spring day in the little city of Holloman, Connecticut, home to prestigious Chubb University and armaments giant Cornucopia, chief of detectives Captain Carmine Delmonico has more pressing concerns than finding a name for his infant son: twelve murders have taken place in one day, and Delmonico is drawn into a gruesome web of secrets and lies.

'Supported by his detective sergeants Abe Goldberg and Corey Marshall, and new team member the meticulous Delia Carstairs, Delmonico embarks on what looks like an unsolvable mystery. All the murders are different, and they all seem unconnected. Are they dealing with one killer, or many? How is the murder of Dee-Dee Hall, a local prostitute, related to the deaths of a mother and her disabled child? How is Chubb student Evan Pugh connected to Desmond Skeps, head of Cornucopia? And as if twelve murders were not enough, Carmine soon finds himself pitted against the mysterious Ulysses, a spy giving Cornucopia′s armaments secrets to the Russians. Are the murders and espionage different cases, or are they somehow linked?

'As the overtaxed police force contends with small town politics, academic rivalry, and corporate greed, the death toll mounts, and Carmine and his team discover that the answers are not what they seem -- but then, are they ever?'  Source: www.harpercollins.com.au/ (Sighted 17/03/2010).

'E-FORCE: Six gifted, super-fit, highly trained individuals

'MISSION: Specialist rescue in times of global emergency

'The Emergency Force team - including Marine Mark Harrison, Shuttle pilot Michaela Buchanan and Cyber genius Tom Erickson - employs some of the most advanced equipment on the planet: from Mach-10 jets to incredible cybersuits. And they'll need all that gadgetry for their first mission - to save the life of US Senator Kyle Foreman.

'Foreman was giving a speech in LA when two bombs ripped through the Conference Centre. Miraculously Foreman survives - except he's trapped inside, as fires rage and floors collapse.

'But as E-Force plan their perilous route into the building, so too does The Dragon, the assassin who will let nothing stop his deadly mission.' (Publisher's blurb)

'Everyone knows the story of Elizabeth and Jane Bennet in Pride and Prejudice. But what about their sister Mary, she of the atrocious singing voice and the staidly religious bent of mind?

'Master storyteller Colleen McCullough paints a life for Mary Bennet twenty years after Jane Austen's novel closes.

'So far on in time, each of Mary's sisters is settled in her own way. Happily married Jane is the mother of many children; Elizabeth has to cope with an unwelcome social pre-eminence she had not envisioned; Lydia is still entranced by military officers; and Kitty is one of the stars of London's fashionable salons.

'Events transpire that free Mary from her family obligations and dangle the allurements of independence before her hungry gaze. Fired with zeal by the newspaper letters of the mystery man Argus, she resolves to publish a book about the plight of England's poor. Plunging from one predicament into another, Mary embarks upon a mission of investigation that eventually leads her into mortal danger and reveals the surprising identity of Argus.

'The Independence of Miss Mary Bennet is both a page-turning look at the ongoing lives of the Bennet sisters, and a sparkling romance that shows it is never too late to find love. Abounding with beloved characters in new guises as well as people we have not met before, it is funny, tragic, and eminently satisfying. This is a novel for every woman who has yearned to leave her mark upon the world - Colleen McCullough at her lively best.' (Publisher's blurb)

When a blackened skeleton is unearthed on a building site in the City of London, no one can have the slightest idea of its extraordinary link to a plot to assassinate the Queen of Englandover 500 years ago.

But there is one very conspicuous clue. On the index finger of the body's right hand is a gold ring topped with a brilliant, round emerald.

DCI Jack Pendragon has just transferred from Oxford to Brick Lane Police Station - in part to escape his own past. Immediately, he finds himself investigating three particularly gruesome murders. And he will need all the experience he has acquired from two decades on the force to track down a killer for whom an eerie obsession has become total madness. A killer who draws his murderous inspiration from a Renaissance family whose power and cruelty remain a living legend.

Source: Publisher's Blurb

It is summer... a heat wave... tense, uneasy days in the city. There are ominous signs of political turbulance in the dying years of the twentieth century. Welfare benefits are under attack, but women are fighting back, using unorthodox weapons. Lynn Byers does not accept the government's demand for a return to 'womanly duties'. As desperate politicians use increasingly savage methods of control, she can no longer stand aside to watch. A classic of women's fiction.' (Publication summary)

'House of All Nations is Christina Stead's 1938 gripping portrayal of financial world success. Set in an exclusive European bank in the heady days of the early thirties, Stead weaves a remarkable tale of greedy, devious and shady characters, all brought together by their love of money. The director of the bank, Jules Bertillon, leads these gamblers, crooks and prospectors on a treacherous journey navigating political and natural disasters, and using both to his advantage.

'House of All Nations has never been more relevant, as Stead's remarkable work speaks loudly about the modern markets. ' (Publication summary)