William Power Mystery series - author   novel  
Issue Details: First known date: 2004-... 2004- William Power Mystery
The material on this page is available to AustLit subscribers. If you are a subscriber or are from a subscribing organisation, please log in to gain full access. To explore options for subscribing to this unique teaching, research, and publishing resource for Australian culture and storytelling, please contact us or find out more.

Includes

1
y separately published work icon Good Murder : A William Power Mystery Robert Gott , Carlton North : Scribe , 2004 Z1148488 2004 single work novel crime historical fiction mystery

'It's 1942, and war is raging in Europe and in the Pacific. The Japanese army is on Australia's doorstep, and the small coastal Queensland town of Maryborough is on full war footing. What they are not prepared for is the arrival in the town of a troupe of incompetent actors whose unjustifiably self-confident leader, William Power, is determined to bring his daring production of Titus Andronicus to the barbarians of rural Australia. Unfortunately for the Power Players, the only gift William Power has is a capacity for being in the wrong place at the wrong time. When a young woman goes missing and is found floating dead in the town's water supply, Power becomes the prime suspect in her murder. With every misplaced step he takes, he becomes more and more embroiled in a series of crimes which baffle the police and horrify the locals. Having no confidence in the constabulary, Power decides that his only option is to solve the crimes himself. His acting skills are not good; his detection skills are worse. As he stumbles towards a solution and as his injuries mount up, he never wavers in his belief that he alone can bring the killer to justice. But, with every day that passes, he tightens the noose around his own neck until, on the night of a violent storm, everything changes. And not for the better.' (Publication summary)

2
y separately published work icon A Thing of Blood Robert Gott , Melbourne : Scribe , 2005 Z1217983 2005 single work novel crime historical fiction mystery

'The fatally over-confident hero of Good Murder returns to pit his meagre detective skills against Army Intelligence, belligerent in-laws, a town full of GIs, and a creepy conspiracy to bring on an Australian sectarian nightmare.

'Failed Shakespearean actor and would-be private detective William Power returns to Melbourne in disgrace after a disastrous brush with theatre and murder in Maryborough. Bloodied, broken, but somehow unbowed, he arrives in a town struggling under war rationing and full of cocky American soldiers, and lands squarely in the bosom of his childhood home in Carlton – a home now dominated by his sister-in-law, the odious Darlene. But even Will's contempt is tempered when, in the early hours of the morning, Darlene is kidnapped, and Will finds his mother's kitchen splattered with blood and scattered with broken crockery.' (Publication summary)

3
y separately published work icon Amongst the Dead Robert Gott , Carlton North : Scribe , 2007 Z1384689 2007 single work novel crime Failed Shakepearean actor and would-be private investigator Will Power's unique detective skills are, once again, in demand. The Japanese army is rampaging through the islands of the South Pacific, where Australia's front line security is a top-secret, crack division of men embedded deep in the tropical wilderness of northern Australia. But something is threatening their vital, covert mission: one of this elite corps is a murderer, preying on his comrades one by one. With a case too sensitive to be trusted to the police, military intelligence turn to the one man whose singular combination of abilities make him capable of infiltrating the clandestine military operation and rooting out the killer. Power goes into deep cover, posing as a cheap, vaudeville entertainer on tour to relieve the troops. Enlisting the help of his brother, whose latent skills for female impersonation rise to the occasion, Power soon finds himself in the far-northern outback trying to raise the moral of a group of desperate young soldiers lying in wait for the arrival of Tojo's army - knowing all the while that one of them is the killer. - back cover
4
y separately published work icon The Serpent's Sting Robert Gott , Carlton North : Scribe , 2016 10448235 2016 single work novel crime detective historical fiction

William Power, actor and sometime private inquiry agent, has returned from the Northern Territory, shaken, stirred, and generally discombobulated. 'I survived the tropics with my life and my looks intact, despite the best efforts of the flora, fauna, and Military Intelligence to steal both from me.' It is late 1942, and in what he believes is a demeaning sideshow to the war, he finds himself playing a pantomime dame. If only this was his only worry, but, as his great hero, Shakespeare, noted, 'When sorrows come, they come not single spies, but in battalions.' Can Will finally overcome his tendency to be the living embodiment of Murphy's Law?

Source: Publisher's Blurb

Publication Details of Only Known VersionEarliest 2 Known Versions of

Last amended 28 Sep 2005 16:35:27
Newspapers:
    Powered by Trove
    X