AustLit

Jed Walker is about to learn that in the murky world of espionage, the rules of war don't apply.

'An action thriller where the line between the good guys and the bad can be hard to see.

'It's 2005 and Jed Walker has just joined the CIA. As a ten-year veteran of Air Force Special Operations, Walker is used to being at the pointy end of things. But normally the front line is much further from home.

'Sent to New Orleans on the trail of Russians wanting to claim back what was stolen from them in Afghanistan, it doesn't take long for Walker to realise that in the murky world of espionage, the rules of war do not apply. 

'Teaming up with a feisty M16 operative, to do what is right for the nation Walker must take steps that will betray The Agency. As Hurricane Katrina hits, to forever change a city, it's clear to Walker that that this is a high-stakes game where the winner takes all, and he must succeed.

'From Langley to Louisiana, Washington to Moscow, The Agency moves like a tempest through a treacherous landscape of double crosses, false identities, and enemies old and new.' (Publication summary)

'In 2011, Seal Team Six killed Osama Bin Laden. Now, four years later, someone is eliminating Team Six - one by one they are turning up dead. Jed Walker, ex-CIA, is an outsider back in the game. He's been chasing down a sinister group code-named Zodiac that the big guns - MI5, CIA, the Pentagon - have failed to eradicate. But as Walker follows the trail of bodies, uncovering secrets and making connections he's not supposed to make, he finds the answers are closer to home than he ever imagined. Revenge is the obvious motive, but nothing is ever that simple in love or in war. Can Walker find who's responsible before the body count grows higher? Can he stop another terror attack before more innocent bystanders suffer? When the line between the good and the bad become blurred, when the hunters become the hunted, only one man can save us all. THE HUNTED is the second Jed Walker novel - a white-knuckled rollercoaster of action suspense.' (Publication summary)

'Alex Tremain is a pirate in trouble. The two women in his life - one of them his financial adviser, the other his diesel mechanic - have left him. He's facing a mounting tide of debts and his crew of modern-day buccaneers, a multi-national band of ex-military cut-throats, is getting restless.

They don't all share his dream of going legit, but what Alex really wants is to re-open the five-star resort hotel which once belonged to his Portuguese mother and English father on the Island of Dreams, off the coast of Mozambique.

A chance raid on a wildlife smuggling ship sets the Chinese triads after him and, to add to his woes, corporate lawyer Jane Humphries lands, literally, in his lap. Another woman is the last thing Captain Tremain needs right now - especially one whose lover is a ruthless shipping magnate backed up by a deadly bunch of contract killers.

What Alex really needs is one last big heist - something valuable enough to fulfil his dreams and set him and his men up for life.

When the South African government makes a controversial decision to reinstitute the culling of elephants in its national parks, Alex finds the answer to his dilemma - three tonnes of ivory. (Publisher's blurb)

'A powerful story of love and loss from internationally bestselling author Tamara McKinley.

'So this is Paris, she thought in awe. Spread out before her beneath a clear blue sky, it was like a precious gift after the smog and filth of London. No wonder it was called the city of love . . .

'After a spiteful rumour ruins her career in London, Annabelle Blake must travel to Paris to start afresh. There she makes the acquaintance of Etienne and Henri - one a poet, the other a painter - both charming, talented and handsome. They spend their days flirting and drinking with the city's artistes and Bohemians, and soon Annabelle too is swept up in the exotic and exhilarating world of 1930s Paris. But as ever more young people are drawn to the fight against Fascism in Spain, Annabelle must wake from the dream and confront the reality of war. A lifetime later, gifted artist Eugenie Ashton falls in love with Paris the moment she sets foot outside the Gare de Lyon. Like her mother Annabelle before her, the artistic delights of the city are a bright new world to her: but Eugenie will soon find that in its shadows are hidden the secrets of her family's past. ' (Publication summary)

'Safari guide and private investigator Hudson Brand hunts people, not animals. He's on the trail of Linley Brown who's been named as the beneficiary of a life insurance policy.

'Linley's friend, Kate, supposedly died in a fiery car accident in Zimbabwe, but Kate's sister wants to believe it is an elaborate fraud.

'South African detective Sannie van Rensburg is also looking for Linley, as well as a serial killer who has been murdering prostitutes on Sannie's watch. Top of her list of suspects is Hudson Brand.

'Sannie and Hudson cross paths and swords as they track the elusive Linley from South Africa and Zimbabwe to the wilds of Kenya's Masai Mara game reserve.' (Publication summary)

'Frustrated by country life and eager for adventure and excitement, seventeen-year-old Tom Button moves to the city to study. Once there, and living in a run-down apartment block called Cairo, he is befriended by the eccentric musician Max Cheever, his beautiful wife Sally, and their close-knit circle of painters and poets.

As Tom falls under the sway of his charismatic older friends, he enters a bohemian world of parties and gallery openings. Soon, however, he is caught up in more sinister events involving deception and betrayal, not to mention one of the greatest unsolved art heists of the twentieth century: the infamous theft of Picasso’s Weeping Woman.

Set among the demimonde — where nothing and nobody is as they seem — Cairo is a novel about growing up, the perils of first love, and finding one’s true place in the world.' (Publisher's blurb)

'Becky Jackson's family has been managing the hospital in far-flung Morgan's Reach for three generations. When Becky's husband is tragically lost at war, she and her young son Danny must leave the city and return to her birthplace to start over.

'But for all its charm, Morgan's Reach is a divided community, where blood is thicker than water and grudges run deep. So when a mysterious stranger appears outside the town and Danny begins to act strangely, it is not only Becky's newfound stability that's threatened.

'And what of the fact that there's not been a drop of rain in over three years? The risk of wildfire looms large and the hospital is already pushed to breaking point. A single spark could level the area in minutes - burning away everything for which the town has worked so hard; exposing the secrets they've fought to keep so close.' (Publication summary)

'When Fleur receives word of a sudden inheritance from an aunt she never knew, it couldn't come at a more opportune moment. Her relationship with her beloved husband is crumbling, and she's caught in the middle of a serious family rift. Consulting her aunt's long-lost diary, Fleur decides to follow her footsteps on a voyage of historical discovery down the coast and through the Gulf Country to find out more about the secrets of her family's past. ' (Publication summary)

'A New Millenium

On 31 December 1999, Australian advertising creative Guy

Russell arrives in New York along with his fragile wife and their

young son. A painful tragedy has led them to swap Melbourne for

Manhattan, and seek a fresh start.

'A New Beginning.

With a new job secured at a thriving midtown agency, and

temporary residence obtained in the Upper West Side's Olcott

Hotel - a building with a morbid history of its own - Guy feels that

now is the time to lay his troubles to rest.

'A New Nightmare.

Yet something won't let him. And as a sinister force from Guy's

past begins to scratch its way back into his present, the behaviour

of his son, Callum, also starts to become increasingly disturbing

and chilling.

'As Guy begins to believe that Callum is being possessed by this

dark force, others fear he is gradually dispossessing himself of his

own sanity. And as Guy grapples with whether the evil tormenting

him is in his surroundings, his son, or his own mind, he pushes

himself ever closer to the edge.' (Publication summary)

'Power through service, says Head Chef. It's one of the first lessons taught at Cook School, where troubled youths learn to be master chefs by bowing to decadence and whim, by offering up a part of themselves on every plate.

'It's a motto Zac takes to heart. A teenage boy with a difficult past, he throws himself into the world and work of haute cuisine. He has dreams of a future, of escaping the dead-end, no-hope lot of his fellow cooks. He wants to be the greatest chef the world has seen. He thinks he's taken his first steps when he becomes House Cook for a wealthy family. Never mind that the family may seem less than appreciative. Or refined. Or deserving. Power through service.

'But as the facade crumbles and his promised future looks unlikely to eventuate, Zac the Cook is forced to reassess everything. Sweet turns sour and ends in bitter revenge.

'Blackly funny and deliciously satirical, The Cook feeds our hunger to know what goes on in the kitchen, while skewering our culture of food worship.' (From the publisher's website.)

'It is 1919. The Great War has ended, but the Spanish flu epidemic is raging across Australia. Schools are closed, state borders are guarded by armed men, and train travel is severely restricted. There are rumours it is the end of the world.

In the NSW town of Flint, Quinn Walker returns to the home he fled ten years earlier when he was accused of an unspeakable crime. Aware that his father and uncle would surely hang him, Quinn hides in the hills surrounding Flint. There, he meets the orphan Sadie Fox - a mysterious young girl who seems to know more about the crime than she should.

A searing gothic novel of love, longing and justice, Bereft is about the suffering endured by those who go to war and those who are forever left behind.' (From the publisher's website.)

'A young petty criminal, Lee, wakes in a seedy motel to find a bullet in his side and a suitcase of stolen money next to him, with only the haziest memory of exactly how he got there. Soon he meets Wild, a morphine-addicted doctor who is escaping his own disastrous life. The two men form an unwilling, unlikely alliance and set out for the safety of a country estate owned by a former colleague of Wild's named Sherman.

'As they flee the city, they develop an uneasy intimacy, inevitably revisiting their pasts even as they desperately seek to evade them. Lee is haunted by a brief stint in jail, while Wild is on the run from the legacy of medical malpractice. But Lee and Wild are not alone: they are pursued through an increasingly alien and gothic landscape by the ageing gangster Josef, who must retrieve the stolen money and deal with Lee to ensure his own survival. By the time Josef finally catches up to them, all three men have been forced to confront the parts of themselves they sought to outrun.' (Publisher's blurb)

'1920. Having disobeyed the wishes of her aristocratic family, Lulu Pearson, a young and talented Tasmanian sculptress, finds herself alone in London in the wake of the Great War. The future is looking bright until, on the eve of her first exhibition, Lulu learns she has inherited a racing colt called Ocean Child from a mysterious benefactor, and she must return to her homeland to claim him.

'Baffled by the news, Lulu boards a ship to Tasmania to uncover the truth behind the strange bequest, but it seems a welcome return is more than she can hope for. Unbeknownst to Lulu, more than a few fortunes ride on Ocean Child's success – it seems everyone from her estranged mother to the stable hands has a part to play, and an interest in keeping the family secrets buried. ' (Publication summary)

In a small Lao village, a very strange thing has happened. A woman was shot and killed in her bed during a burglary; she was given a funeral and everyone in the village saw her body burned. Then, three days later, she was back in her house as if she'd never been dead at all. But now she's clairvoyant, and can speak to the dead. That's why the long-dead brother of a Lao general has enlisted her to help his brother uncover his remains, which have been lost at the bottom of a river for many years.

Lao national coroner Dr. Siri Paiboun and his wife, Madame Daeng, are sent along to supervise the excavation. It could be a kind of relaxing vacation for them, maybe, except Siri is obsessed with the pretty undead medium's special abilities, and Madame Daeng might be a little jealous. She doesn't trust the woman for some reason─is her hunch right? What is the group really digging for at the bottom of this remote river on the Thai border? What war secrets are being covered up?

Source: Publisher's Blurb

'In 1920s Glasgow, Beattie Blaxland falls pregnant to her married lover Henry just before her nineteenth birthday. Abandoned by her family, Beattie and Henry set sail for a new life in Australia. But life is not about to follow the plan that Beattie had hoped for and fate will play her a cruel hand...

'In 2009, London, prima ballerina Lydia Blaxland-Hunter is also discovering that life can also have its ups and downs. Unable to dance again after a fall, Lydia returns home to Australia to recuperate. But on arrival she is presented with some surprising news - her recently deceased and much-loved grandmother Beattie Blaxland has left her Tasmanian property to Lydia.

'Told through the eyes of a young Beattie Blaxland and a contemporary Lydia Blaxland-Hunter, this is an emotionally charged, seductive tale of self-discovery, secrets and surprises.' (From the publisher's website.)