AustLit

'Now, when I look at the desert, I am reminded of the year I spent in Egypt - the most definitive of my life ...

'Egypt, 1977. Oliver, a geophysicist expert in oil exploration, finds himself unwillingly swept up in a world of political and mystical sabotage after his wife, Isabella, a marine archaeologist, discovers a mysterious ancient artefact, an astrolabe she'd been searching for all her life.

'Oliver embarks on a journey that takes him into the secrets of Isabella's once-wealthy Italian-Alexandrian family, and the powers of the astrolabe itself. Powers he, a fierce sceptic, refuses to accept.

'Now the reluctant custodian of the astrolabe, and pursued by those keen to use it for their own purposes, Oliver flees back to London where punk is raging, and sex, drugs and rock'n'roll are all around. When his brother overdoses, Oliver is reluctantly forced to test the powers of the astrolabe himself; in doing so he seals a Faustian pact.' (from the publisher's website)

Detect'ive Briony Williams is a rookie appointed to an all-male team investigating a bizarre murder at an anatomy college in Bloomsbury. Her superiors constantly make her feel left out. But a killer obsessed with following Jack the Ripper soon changes that. The killer is a practised anatomist with a theatrical streak. He arranges his victims bodies in cruel parodies of famous satirical engravings by Hogarth. As the summer and the swinging 60s wind to a terrible climax, this multi-layered thriller brings the startling and terrible strands of the story together. ' (Publication summary)

'It is 1974 and Detective Inspector Briony Williams, with her trademark directness and impatience with small talk, has just started a new job with the Thames Valley Police in Oxford.Briony and her team are called out to investigate the murder of a 17-year-old girl in whose hand she finds a stone carved with an ancient cryptic message that says 'the busie fiend control'. Convinced she has encountered no ordinary domestic crime, Briony finds herself in a world of vengeful gods, devilish creatures in search of prey, and curses of the evil eye.A serial killer is roaming the prehistoric landscapes of the White Horse Vale, inspired by local druid folklore about a demonic supernatural Visitor. The perpetrator is violently and systematically murdering people, the victims restrained or held down and killed with heavy blows from all angles.There are psychic girls, druid witches, and maybe even horned goats sitting on altars wearing fur-edged capes. Or are there? Briony, in her search for scientific evidence, needs to steer a dangerous course between rationality and superstition during the autumn equinox, when the spirits are said to wander between worlds.' (Publication summary)