AustLit

'“And I prayed that I would find a way to tell my most honorable friend, the Chevalier C. Auguste Dupin, the truth about how I had finally been murdered and by whom.”—EAP

'Summer, 1849. When Edgar Allan Poe travels to Paris to help his dear friend hunt down the elusive criminal who bought the Dupin family to ruin during the French Revolution, the sleuthing duo are engaged by the prefect of police to recover the stolen letter of an infamous Parisian salonnière.

'Is the thief one of the French literary greats who attend her salons, or might it be Dupin’s own enemy who is scheming to become the Emperor of France? Poe and Dupin are quickly embroiled in a deadly cat and mouse game that takes them to the treacherous tunnels of the city’s necropolis, where few who venture into the notorious Empire of the Dead manage to return from the darkness…'

Source: Publisher's blurb.

'A compulsive, note-perfect debut for fans of The Virgin Suicides and Picnic at Hanging Rock

''We lost all three girls that summer. Let them slip away like the words of some half-remembered song and when one came back, she wasn't the one we were trying to recall to begin with.'

'Tikka Molloy was eleven and one-sixth years old during the long hot summer of 1992, growing up in a distant suburb in Australia surrounded by encroaching bushland. That summer, the hottest on record, was when the Van Apfel sisters – Hannah, the beautiful Cordelia and Ruth – mysteriously disappeared during the school's Showstopper concert, held at the outdoor amphitheatre by the river.  Did they run away? Were they taken?  While the search for the sisters unites the small community, the mystery of their disappearance has never been solved.

'Now, years later, Tikka has returned home, to try to make sense of that strange moment in time. The summer that shaped her.  The girls that she never forgot. 

'Brilliantly observed, spiky, sharp, funny and unexpectedly endearing, The Van Apfel Girls are Gone is part mystery, part coming-of-age story – with a dark shimmering unexplained absence at its heart. '  (Publication summary)

'Not all murder victims are mourned, but the perpetrator must always be punished . . .

'For Robert Church, superintendent of the Parramatta Female Factory, the most enjoyable part of his job is access to young convict women. Inmate Grace O’Leary has made it her mission to protect the women from his nocturnal visits and when Church is murdered with an awl thrust through his right eye, she becomes the chief suspect.

'Recently arrived from Port Macquarie, ticket-of-leave gentleman convict Hugh Monsarrat now lives in Parramatta with his ever-loyal housekeeper Mrs Mulrooney. Monsarrat, as an unofficial advisor on criminal and legal matters to the governor’s secretary, is charged with uncovering the truth of Church’s murder. Mrs Mulrooney accompanies him to the Female Factory, where he is taking depositions from prisoners, including Grace, and there the housekeeper strikes up friendships with certain women, which prove most intriguing.

'Monsarrat and Mrs Mulrooney both believe that Grace is innocent, but in this they are alone, so to exonerate her they must find the murderer. Many hated Church and are relieved by his death, but who would go as far as killing him? ' (Publication summary)

'Philadelphia, 1844. As violent tensions escalate between nativists and recent Irish immigrants, Edgar Allan Poe’s fears for the safety of his wife, Virginia, and mother-in-law, Muddy, are compounded when he receives a parcel of mummified bird parts. Has his nemesis returned to settle an old score? Just as odd is the arrival of Helena Loddiges, a young heiress who demands Poe’s help to discover why her lover died at the city’s docks on his return from an expedition to Peru.  Poe is skeptical of her claims of having received messages from birds—and visitations from her lover’s ghost—but when Miss Loddiges is kidnapped, he and his friend C. Auguste Dupin must unravel a mystery involving old enemies, lost soul-mates, ornithomancy, and the legendary jewel of Peru.'

Source: Publisher's blurb.

'Summer, 1840. Edgar Allan Poe sails from Philadelphia to London to meet his friend C. Auguste Dupin, in hope that the great detective will help him solve a family mystery. For Poe inherited a mahogany box containing a collection of letters allegedly written by his grandparents, Elizabeth and Henry Arnold. The Arnolds were actors who struggled to make a living on the London stage, but the mysterious letters suggest that the couple played a more clandestine role, stalking well-to-do young women at night, to slice their clothing and derrieres. Poe hopes to prove the missives forgeries; Dupin wonders if they are real, but their content is fantasy. Soon Poe is being stalked by someone who knows far more about his grandparents and their crimes than he does. And then he remembers disturbing attacks made upon him as a child in London. Could the perpetrators be connected?' (publication blurb)

'In a penal station for second offenders at the edge of the known world, gentleman convict Hugh Monsarrat hungers for a freedom he fears he may never again know. Originally transported for forging documents passing himself off as a lawyer, and later criminalised again for travelling outside the boundaries of his ticket of leave to visit his lover, he is now the trusted clerk of the settlement's Commandant.

'His position has certain advantages, such as being able to spend time in the Government House kitchen, being supplied with tea by housekeeper Hannah Mulrooney who, despite being illiterate, is one of the most intelligent people at Port Macquarie Penal Settlement. Her pet soldier Private Fergal Slattery, who is in charge of a convict crew hanging green wallpaper at Government House, is also among the kitchen's frequent visitors.

'With the Commandant away on an expedition, his beautiful young wife Honora falls ill, with a sickness the settlement doctor can't identify.

'When Honora dies, though, it becomes clear she has been slowly poisoned.

'Monsarrat and Mrs Mulrooney suspect the Commandant's second in command, Captain Michael Diamond, a cruel man who had been nursing an obsession with Honora.

'But then, Diamond has Mrs Mulrooney arrested for the murder. Knowing his friend will likely hang if she is tried, Monsarrat has to find a means to identify the real killer.

'Monsarrat is able to solve the crime and is granted a ticket of leave for his efforts, on the condition that he continue to work solving crimes for the crown. He knows he will be incapable of fulfilling his obligations without Mrs Mulrooney (or her tea), and requests she be assigned as his housekeeper. And so begins The Monsarrat Series, a fast-paced, witty and gripping series from Tom Keneally and his eldest daughter Meg.' (Publication summary)