Cirrus@Austlit

'Julia is a photographer, Chantal edits a fashion magazine, Helen is a feminist academic and Philippa is a writer. These four friends haunt the cafés of inner-city Sydney, eyeing the passing talent and swapping outlandish tales. Sexy, intelligent, predatory, they are women of their time—but can we believe their wild and wicked descriptions of their erotic exploits?' (Publication summary)

'On Bryan Cavanagh's birthday, a sealed letter from Rome arrives, bearing the arms of the ancient house of the Farnese di Mongrifone. Affectionate, even imperious, it is a summons from the woman he loved—and lost—in the turbulent, opportunistic world of postwar Europe.

'Beset by his memories of an extraordinary voyage on a private yacht on the Mediterranean forty years earlier, Bryan returns to Rome, where he discovers a closely guarded secret

'In The Lovers, Morris West spins a glowing thread of love lost and regained, woven through a rich tapestry of intrigue, betrayal, suspense and murder.'

Source: Publisher's blurb (Allen & Unwin, 2017).

'Autumn 1990. The world is teetering on the edge of war in the Gulf, Germany is reunited and a crumbling USSR stares ruin in the face. In Japan, a group of powerful men and women gather to create a rescue plan that will bring all three countries together for the first time in fifty years.

'Polyglot international publisher Gill Langton is mediator-in-chief. Treading the highest wire of global power-broking, he alone can balance politics with intrigue, manoeuvre with counter-manoeuvre. But his love for the beautiful, enigmatic Martha could bring it all tumbling down.'

Source: Publisher's blurb (Allen & Unwin, 2017).

'When the daughter of an old Florentine family dies, she leaves a bequest to her lover Max Mather, an American art historian who has been managing the family's rare art collection. Mather is left with two priceless artworks by the great Renaissance master Raphael—without the family's knowledge. As Mather contrives to have the artworks discovered at auction in New York, big-time collectors, dealers and auctioneers are drawn into his game. In trying to out-deal the deal-makers, he becomes embroiled in a tangled web surrounding the brutal murder of a promiscuous Manhattan painter, Madeleine Bayard. The two stories intertwine in this fast-paced tale of intrigue and murder in the international art world.'

Source: Publisher's blurb (Allen & Unwin, 2017).

'Pope Leo XIV battles enemies from within the Vatican and Islamic terrorists determined to assassinate him—the third title in the Vatican Trilogy.'

Source: Publisher's blurb (Allen & Unwin, 2017).

'Even in death, Cassidy is larger than life.

'Charles Parnell Cassidy is a powerful politician. He's a backroom fixer generous, but also greedy and cunning. Martin Gregory is his disenchanted protégé who, having married Cassidy's daughter and become a success on his own terms, scorns his father-in-law.

'When the terminally ill Cassidy arrives in London to die, he makes Gregory the executor of his will and sets a complex trap by offering him the keys to a vast empire of wealth and corruption spanning Australia and Southeast Asia. With Cassidy's evil influence ever-present Gregory tries to unravel the old man's complicated obligations and debts, while struggling to ensure the security of his family.'

Source: Publisher's blurb (Allen & Unwin, 2017).

'A cryptic and mysterious case history appears in the autobiography of pioneering Swiss psychiatrist Carl Jung: 'A lady came to my office. She refused to give her name ... What she had to communicate to me was a confession. Some twenty years ago, she had committed a murder ...'

'Jung's encounter with the woman had an explosive effect on him, and brought him very close to total breakdown. Morris West recreates this episode in a gripping blend of truth and dramatic speculation.

'Set in pre-World War I Europe, The World is Made of Glass is a powerful novel of love, sexual obsession, murder and guilt It has been called Morris West's finest creation of the imagination.'

Source: Publisher's blurb (Allen & Unwin, 2017).

'The Pope receives a private revelation that the world is about to end—the second title in the Vatican Trilogy.'

Source: Publisher's blurb (Allen & Unwin, 2017).

'Big John Spada is a self-made millionaire. From his headquarters in New York, he directs enterprises around the world with military precision. Privately, Spada also funds Proteus, a clandestine movement that works to free political prisoners and combat tyrants wherever they may be.

'Then news arrives from Argentina that the Buenos Aires secret police have arrested Spada's daughter Teresa, a doctor, after she performed emergency surgery on a man with gunshot wounds. They then take her husband Rodolfo whose outspoken editorials have angered the country's fascist government.

'A scheme is hatched by Proteus to rescue them, but soon the enemies of Proteus begin to target Spada himself.'

Source: Publisher's blurb (Allen & Unwin, 2017).

'Son of a Norwegian master-mariner and grandson of Kaloni, the last of the great Polynesian navigators, Gunnar Thorkild is a man consumed by a dream. Convinced that the Polynesians' legendary Island of the Dead is real, he risks his career, his life—and those of his fellow adventurers—to find it.

'Shipwrecked on the very island they seek, the castaways are forced to leave behind everything they know and rely upon. To survive in this lush tropical paradise, they must make new laws of power and property, of sex and marriage.'

Source: Publisher's blurb (Allen & Unwin, 2017).

'Paul Desmond admires his close friend George Harlequin for his impeccable European breeding. Head of a prestigious Swiss bank, Harlequin belongs to a vanishing class of gentlemen whose handshake is their bond.

'Then their gilded world is blown apart. A computer printout identifies the Harlequin et Cie bank as the target of a gigantic takeover. The mastermind is Basil Yanko, a ruthless financial genius whose instruments are fraud, blackmail and terror.

'As the conflict moves from Zurich to London, New York and Mexico, Harlequin must become a 'villain by necessity'. Can Desmond help his friend save his bank—and his family?'

Source: Publisher's blurb (Allen & Unwin, 2017).

'An Italian general is found dead in his apartment Next to his body is a small card inscribed with a salamander in a bed of flames. Is it suicide or murder?

Dante Matucci, a captain in the Italian secret service, begins an investigation that leads him into a maze of political violence and intrigue. He meets the general's former mistress, Lili Anders, and embarks on a dangerous affair with the beautiful one-time spy. Soon he is drawn into the net of the great Salamander himself, millionaire industrialist Bruno Manzini, who is pitting his wits against the elaborate machinery threatening Italy's government.

'In a game of high stakes, how much is Matucci prepared to pay to survive?'

Source: Publisher's blurb (Allen & Unwin, 2017)

'A famous writer travels to the remote, windswept islands of Scotland's Outer Hebrides looking for peace of mind and a chance to dispel his inner demons.

'On the way, a car accident throws him together with the raven-haired doctor Kathleen McNeil. He also falls in with the Red Wolf, a man who lives by the old codes—some of them violent. As a love triangle develops, the refined, civilised writer finds himself pitted against the rough-hewn man of nature.

'Summer of the Red Wolf is an epic story for a modern age; a fast-paced narrative in a rugged landscape, driven by the timeless themes of love and jealousy.'

Source: Publisher's blurb (Allen & Unwin, 2017).