AustLit

'Fear the man who has nothing left to lose… 

'Cody Thurston is working his usual shift at the rough East London pub he calls home. When a group of out-of-towners walk in looking for trouble, Thurston sends them on their way using some not-so-gentle persuasion. 

'As a former special forces operative in the Australian military, Thurston can handle trouble. But these men are more dangerous than he realises, and the actions they take will leave Thurston homeless, alone and seeking revenge.' (Publication summary)

'On 11 November 1982, police were called to a housing estate an hour west of Melbourne.

In the lounge room of an otherwise ordinary brick veneer home, they found a five-year-old boy lying on the carpet.

His arms were by his sides, his palms flat. The paramedics could see no obvious signs of trauma other than an almost imperceptible indentation to the boy's skull, but he died the next day. The boy's mother said a man had attacked her son on the way back from the shops but few people were surprised when she and her boyfriend went to prison for the crime.

Police declared themselves satisfied that justice had been done. And yet, for years, rumours swept the estate and clung like cobwebs to the long-vacant house: there had been a cover-up. The real perpetrator, at least according to local gossip, was the boy's six-year-old sister, Lauren...' Source: www.randomhouse.com.au/ (Sighted 01/10/2009).

'One suburban morning in Summer 1970, Peter van Rijn, proprietor of the television and wireless shop, realises that his suburb is 100 years old. He contacts the Mayor, who assembles a Committee, and celebrations are eagerly planned. That same morning, just a few streets way, Rita is awakened by a dream of her husband's snores. It is years since Vic moved north, and left their house of empty silences, yet his life remains bound up with hers. Their son, too, has moved on - Michael is at university, exploring new ideas and the heady world of grown-up love. Yet Rita still stubbornly stays in the old street, unable to imagine leaving the house she has tended so lovingly for so long. Instead she has taken on the care of another house as well - that of the widowed Mrs Webster, owner of the suburb's landmark factory, now in decline. As these lives entwine, and the Committee commissions its centenary mural and prepares to commemorate Progress, History - in the shape of the new, post-war generation represented by Michael and his friends - is heading straight for them...'

(Source: Publisher's blurb)

'On a hot summer's night in the 1950s, the old and the new, diesel and steam, town and country all collide - and nobody will be left unaffected.

'As a passenger train leaves Spencer Street Station on its haul to Sydney, a family of three - Vic, Rita and their son Michael - are off to a party. George Bedser has invited the whole neighbourhood to celebrate the engagement of his daughter. Vic is an engine driver, with dreams of being like his hero Paddy Ryan and becoming the master of the smooth ride. As the neighbours walk to the party, we are drawn into the lives of a bully, a drunk, a restless girl and a young boy forced to grow up before he is ready. The Art of the Engine Driver is a luminous and evocative tale of ordinary suburban lives, told with an extraordinary power.'

Source: Publisher's blurb.