AustLit

'When her father and step-mother are found brutally murdered on a summer morning in 1892, Lizzie Borden - thirty two years old and still living at home - immediately becomes a suspect. But after a notorious trial, she is found innocent, and no one is ever convicted of the crime.

'Meanwhile, others in the claustrophobic Borden household have their own motives and their own stories to tell: Lizzie's unmarried older sister, a put-upon Irish housemaid, and a boy hired by Lizzie's uncle to take care of a problem.

'This unforgettable debut makes you question the truth behind one of the great unsolved mysteries, as well as exploring power, violence and the harsh realities of being a woman in late nineteenth century America.' (Publication summary)

'Breaking their poses like trees snapping branches, the women urgently regarded each other, cleared away all signs of work in an instant, examined their souls for defects, in a sense crossed themselves, and waited.

'After Laura and Clare are abandoned by their mother, Felix is there to help, even to marry Laura if she will have him. Little by little the two sisters grow complicit with his obsessions, his cruelty, his need to control.

'Set in the leafy northern suburbs of Sydney during the 1940s, The Watch Tower is a novel of relentless and acute psychological power.' (Publication summary)

'Zoe Howard is seventeen when her brother, Russell, introduces her to Stephen Quayle. Aloof and harsh, Stephen is unlike anyone she has ever met, ‘a weird, irascible character out of some dense Russian novel’. His sister, Anna, is shy and thoughtful, ‘a little orphan’.

'Zoe and Russell, Stephen and Anna: they may come from different social worlds but all four will spend their lives moving in and out of each other’s shadow.

'Set amid the lush gardens and grand stone houses that line the north side of Sydney Harbour, In Certain Circles is an intense psychological drama about family and love, tyranny and freedom.' (Publication abstract)

'Stephen Villani is the acting head of the Victoria Police homicide squad. But his first months on the job have not gone well: two Aboriginal teenagers shot dead in a botched operation he authorised in the provincial city of Cromarty; and, no progress on the killing of a man in front of his daughter outside a private girls' school.

Now five men are found dead in horrifying circumstances on the outskirts of the city. Villani's superiors and the media are baying for arrests. To add to his woes, some of the country's richest people are alarmed by the baffling killing of a young woman in the high-security tower where they live.

Villani, a man who has built his life around his work, begins to find the certainties of both crumbling. As the pressure mounts, he finds that he must contemplate things formerly unthinkable. Truth is a novel about murder, corruption, family, friends, honour, honesty, deceit, love, betrayal and truth.' (from Quercus website)

The Turning comprises seventeen overlapping stories of second thoughts and mid-life regret set in the brooding small-town world of coastal Western Australia. Here are turnings of all kinds - changes of heart, nasty surprises, slow awakenings, sudden detours - where people struggle against the terrible weight of the past and challenge the lives they've made for themselves.

These elegiac stories examine the darkness and frailty of ordinary people and celebrate the moments when the light shines through.

'Miss Hester Harper, middle-aged and eccentric, brings Katherine into her emotionally impoverished life. Together they sew, cook gourmet dishes for two, run the farm, make music and throw dirty dishes down the well. One night, driving along the deserted track that leads to the farm, they run into a mysterious creature. They heave the body from the roo bar and dump it into the farm's deep well. But the voice of the injured intruder will not be stilled and, most disturbing of all, the closer Katherine is drawn to the edge of the well, the farther away she gets from Hester.' (From the publisher's website.)

Fred Scully is in another country, a 'desert Irishman' far from home. After two long years of travelling through Europe, he decided to move his family from Australia to western Ireland. Scully arrived weeks ahead of his family to renovate the old farmhouse they'd bought in the shadow of a castle in County Offally, and which he's renovated by hand. Now, at the gate of Shannon's international airport, he anxiously awaits the arrival of his pregnant wife and seven-year-old daughter, envisioning a new life ahead, a fresh start. He has waited for and worried about this for months. He is a man who does not like being alone. The plane lands, the glass doors to the terminal slide open and his daughter emerges. Alone. There is no note, no word of explanation from his wife, only the mute silence of his stunned child. In an instant, Scully's life goes down in flames. This is a story of a marriage in our time. So begins a love-crazed odyssey across Europe, to the underside of the male psyche, in search of a woman vanished.

(Adapted from Trove)

'Cliff Hardy is at the party to look after the paintings and throw out the drunks - gently.

But there he meets Helen Broadway, who interests him; and Paul Guthrie, who wants Hardy to look for his stepson, Ray.

'Hardy delves into the sleazy Kings Cross backstreets and lowdown pubs, following a twisting path laid by a hitman, a criminal with heavy political protection, and a seedy alcoholic member of his own profession. There's scarcely enough time for Helen 'Broadway, interesting though she still is.

Hardy pushes on to final confrontation. It's rough: the guns are out, and the odds are no help...' (Publication summary)

'He's a one-man army for $125 a day, plus expenses, and Hardy was finding his fee harder to earn all the time.

From reformed junkies to high fashion models, from radical politics to corporate, every type of face with every type of problem eventually walked through Hardy's door. But on thing was for sure: Hardy would get lied to, punched out, shot at, and merely ignored before he could give his clients satisfaction...' (Publisher's blurb)

'It's no secret that the people who hire Hardy have nowhere else to turn.

Take Lady Catherine Chatterton, widow of the eminent judge. She's desperate to hand down the mantle of her husband's legal reign (not to mention the money) to someone more deserving than her boozy daughter Bettina.

So she hires Hardy to find her missing grandson - a tall order considering the only evidence of the young man's existence came two years earlier from an ageing drunk. Funny thing - when Hardy finds that drunk there is a helpful photograph... and within the hour, the drunk is dead. Now Hardy's on a murder case.' (Publisher's blurb)

He needs a nice smooth job, something to pay the bills - and keep his glass filled.

But smooth this one isn't. Ted Tarleton is a very rich bookie whose beautiful, spoiled daughter, Noni, is missing. Tarleton wants Hardy to find her. The logical place to start is with Noni's boyfriend, but the actor has long since ceased to keep tabs on her.

So Hardy makes for seedy La Perouse, where the local aboriginals recognise Noni's photo. She's the one they call "white meat". And Hardy will take more than a few blows as he follows her into the violent wreckage of her own past...

'Meet Cliff Hardy. Smoker, drinker, ex-boxer. And private investigator.

When the wealthy Bryn Gutteridge hires Hardy to help his sister, it looks as if blackmail is the problem. Until the case becomes more brutal, twisted and shocking than even Hardy could have guessed.' (Text Classics blurb)