Cirrus@Austlit

'Detective-Inspector Napoleon Bonaparte is on leave, staying with an old friend near Adelaide. Ben Wickham, a meteorologist whose uncannily accurate forecasts have helped farmers all over Australia, until recently lived nearby. But he has died after a three week drinking binge and a doctor certified death resulting from delirium tremens. Yet Bony's host insists that whatever Ben died of, it wasn't alcohol.' (Publication summary)

'The Answerth family's mansion seems to deserve its nickname of Venom House - perhaps because of its forbidding setting, an island in the centre of a man-made lake, its treacherous waters studded by the skeletons of long-dead trees. Perhaps it's because of the unquiet ghosts of the Aboriginals slaughtered by the Answerth ancestors. Whatever the reason, most people are content to give Venom House and its occupants a wide berth... until a couple of corpses turn up in the lake. Inspector Bonaparte has a sudden urge to get to knows the Answerths and their charming home much better... ' (Publication summary)

'The naked body of a man is discovered entombed in the wall of the Split Point Lighthouse on Australia's southeast coast; the murder is two months old, and the identity of the victim is unknown. Of Split Point's suspicious inhabitants, only Ed Penwarden, the coffin-maker, befriends Bony upon his arrival. As he delves into the case, Bony is curious to know why a coffin is moved in the night, who was the girl seen struggling with Dick Lake on the cliff top--and why the Bully Buccaneers came to deal in death.' (Publication summary)

'On a vast sheep station in the outback, Raymond Gillen goes swimming in the lake one night and is never seen again. After the failure of local police to solve the mystery, bony arrives disguised as a horse-breaker, and uncovers a story of sexual tension and murder. The lake is evaporating in the intense drought - only when it dies will the mystery be solved. Apart from its strengths as a crime novel, this is probably the best book ever written about drought in Australia.' (Publication summary)