AustLit

'I was dreading the Cunningham family reunion even before the first murder.

'Before the storm stranded us at the mountain resort, snow and bodies piling up.

'The thing is, us Cunninghams don’t really get along. We’ve only got one thing in common: we’ve all killed someone.

My brother.
My step-sister
My wife
My father
My mother
My sister-in-law
My uncle
My stepfather
My aunt
Me'

Source: Publisher's blurb.

"HIS HONOUR: Mr Jardim, withdraw that comment immediately.

MR JARDIM: Your Honour, I'm not withdrawing it because it's got nothing to do with the merits of this case, just as your small-minded treatment of my client has got nothing to do with the merits of the case. I mean, could you have cocked this thing up any worse? Bloody helpless kid and you know she's back out on the street now. You're known throughout the state as a heartless old prick and a drunk, and seeing I've gone this far, your daughter-in-law's appointment to the court is widely viewed as a grubby political payoff. Today's pretty much the lowest I've seen you stoop but it's been a rich field of excrem—

HIS HONOUR: Senior, will you have Mr Jardim removed?

Charlie Jardim has just trashed his legal career in a spectacular courtroom meltdown, and his girlfriend has finally left him. So when a charitable colleague slings him a prosecution brief that will take him to the remote coastal town of Dauphin, Charlie reluctantly agrees that the sea air might be good for him.

The case is a murder. The victim was involved in the illegal abalone trade and the even more illegal drug trade. And the witnesses aren't talking.

And as Dauphin closes ranks around him, Charlie is about to find his interest in the law powerfully reignited." (Publisher's blurb)

'2003: In Paris, an assassin wakes from a coma. In Kuwait, American forces are assembled for their invasion of Iraq. In the pristine forest of the Cascades, a lone hiker watches a plane fly into the side of a mountain. And just north of the Equator, a modern-day pirate, a rogue Tasmanian, is witness to the unspeakable. A wave of inexplicable energy has slammed into America. And destroyed it. In one instant, all around the world, from Cairo to Canberra, things will never be the same.

'Now, allied soldiers are fighting a war without command; a correspondent files a story for a newspaper that no longer exists. The line of Presidential succession is in tatters; the functioning remnants of government are in Pearl Harbor, Guantanamo Bay, and one desperate, isolated corner of the Pacific Northwest.

'For the jihadists, Allah has performed a miracle. For Sadaam, it is a chance for revenge. Iran declares war, but on an America that doesn't exist, except in the hearts and souls of the men and women who want it to. For US allies, Armageddon has arrived. Israel acts. Australasia, far from the noxious waste darkening Europe's skies, beckons as a possible oasis.' (Publisher's blurb)