AustLit

'Abandoned in a big city at the onset of winter, a hungry four-year-old boy follows a stray dog to her lair. There in the rich smelly darkness, in the rub of hair, claws and teeth, he joins four puppies suckling at their mother's teats. And so begins Romochka's life as a dog.

Weak and hairless, with his useless nose and blunt little teeth, Romochka is ashamed of what a poor dog he makes. But learning how to be something else...that's a skill a human can master. Fortunately - because one day Romochka will have to learn how to be a boy.' (Publisher's Blurb)

'An early-morning murder in the park of a quiet country town. Two hitch-hiking girls, one of them guilty - one of them a liar.

'Four years on, Marion still has to know who killed her brother. The police, the press and ordinary people have lost interest in the case. She needs to call on Jefferson Shields - she's been told that he solves puzzles.

'You'll be baffled to the end of The Souvenir.' (Publisher's blurb [Wakefield Press ed.])