Outback Cop


Book Description

Birdsville is one of the most remote police postings in Australia. It can be lonely and uneventful for weeks, then the dramas come thick and fast: from desert rescues to rising floods, venomous vipers to visiting VIPs. Throw in heat, dust and flies and it’s not a job for the faint-hearted, unless you’re Senior Constable Neale McShane, who has single-handedly taken care of a beat the size of Victoria for the past ten years. Recently retired from this ‘hardship posting’, Neale and his family thrived on the adventures and colourful times that come with the territory in the furthest corner of our country. Yarning with friend and bestselling author Evan McHugh, Neale’s experiences are humorous and heartfelt. How do you feed 4000 unexpected dinner guests? Where do you find a Chinook helicopter when you need one? Who’s your backup when the population explodes for the famous Birdsville Races? And what do you do when you’re the person the Flying Doctor is flying out? Among these inspiring tales of danger and death, dreamers and ‘dumb tourists’, you’ll encounter a little community with a big heart that stands shoulder-to-shoulder with a larger-than-life policeman who’s become part of Australia’s outback legend.




Outback Conflict


Book Description

Mick Mathews has enviable outback skills, and when international criminals invade his personal space, it forces him to outwit nefarious, highly trained drug runners. Alexandra Beaumont, a university biology student, drives to Pilbara in Western Australia to study unique flora and fauna. Alex finds out all too soon that the outback is not for the fainthearted. Initially, Mick and she collide. Mick sees Alex as a potential hazard, a worrying liability. However, Alex has some unique skills of her own, which Mick begins to admire. Together, they use their combined expertise to thwart six hardened and sadistic killers intent on making millions of dollars out of illegally imported heroin. Helped by Mick’s red dog—Bess, a well-trained dingo cross—Mick and Alex have further advantage as Bess has the wild dog instincts no man can ever possess. A flooded river, capture, torture, and bitter fighting to endure—all seems impossible to overcome. However, with ingenuity, outback skills, and masterful maneuverability, Mick and Alex begin their reluctant fight for survival. During a brief interlude, they have a welcome reprieve, a blissful night spent on top of an escarpment where they bathe with warm water from a shallow gnamma hole. After capturing two of the brutal thugs and imprisoning them in a large gnamma hole, Mick, Alex, and Bess head for the abandoned airstrip where the remaining drug runners await the plane’s arrival with its illicit cargo. Mick disables the plane, renders their vehicles out of action, and wounds two criminals. Alex is captured. Mick and Bess free her. After a deadly fight with the remaining two thugs, they capture and incarcerate them with their fellow criminals and radio the authorities. Mick and Alex are rewarded by the government and have found love in the most unlikely place—the rugged Australian outback.




Outback Shimmer


Book Description




The Lost Man


Book Description

INSTANT NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER Two brothers meet in the remote Australian outback when the third brother is found dead, in this stunning new standalone novel from Jane Harper Brothers Nathan and Bub Bright meet for the first time in months at the remote fence line separating their cattle ranches in the lonely outback. Their third brother, Cameron, lies dead at their feet. In an isolated belt of Australia, their homes a three-hour drive apart, the brothers were one another’s nearest neighbors. Cameron was the middle child, the one who ran the family homestead. But something made him head out alone under the unrelenting sun. Nathan, Bub and Nathan’s son return to Cameron’s ranch and to those left behind by his passing: his wife, his daughters, and his mother, as well as their long-time employee and two recently hired seasonal workers. While they grieve Cameron’s loss, suspicion starts to take hold, and Nathan is forced to examine secrets the family would rather leave in the past. Because if someone forced Cameron to his death, the isolation of the outback leaves few suspects. A powerful and brutal story of suspense set against a formidable landscape, The Lost Man confirms Jane Harper, author of The Dry and Force of Nature, is one of the best new voices in writing today.




Before It Breaks


Book Description

Winner: 2016 Australian Crime Writers Association, Ned Kelly Award, Best Crime Novel Detective Inspector Daniel Clement is back in Broome, the tropical town where he grew up, licking his wounds from a busted marriage and struggling to be impressed by his new team of small-town, inexperienced cops. But stagnation and lethargy soon give way to a case with urgent purpose. On the edge of the desert, a man is found dead in a crocodile-infested watering hole. And he is only the first. The connection between the victims is elusive, but Clement must pursue it as a decades-old mystery begins to unravel and a monster cyclone brews on the horizon.




Birdsville


Book Description

For a town with seventy residents (on a good day), Birdsville is remarkably well known the Birdsville Track, the rodeo, the pub, the infamous races. With its ruggedness, inaccessibility and larrikin charm, this small town on the edge of the Simpson Desert has become a symbol of the great Australian outback. What is it about Birdsville that has made it stand so large in our legends? And what's it like to live there amongst the floods and the heat and the dust storms? To find out, Evan McHugh packed up his Sydney home, bought a four-wheel drive and headed off with his wife for a year in the back of beyond. Here, he tells us of the large adventures midnight desert rescues, aerial mustering on vast cattle stations, relentless heat and massive floods but also the small details of life in one of Australia's most isolated towns like driving 700 kilometres to go shopping. As the month fly by, Evan learns about an ancient culture, sees dunes carpeted in millions of tiny wildflowers, and meets the members of an outback community facing extraordinary challenges with quiet determination and buckets of good humour. Birdsville is about breathtaking beauty and harshness of this country, the generosity of its salt-of-the-earth people, and one man's discovery of his own reserves of courage and resilience. 'McHugh is a clever mixture of curious outsider and eager participant... Written in a simple but elegant style where honesty and thoughtfulness build an accurate picture of the richness of life in one of Australia's most famous outback towns.' The Age




Australia in the Raw


Book Description




Darkness Calls


Book Description

This book examines the contrasting forms neo-noir has taken on screen, asking what prompts our continued interest in tales of criminality and moral uncertainty. Neo-noir plots are both familiar and diverse, found in a host of media formats today, and now span the globe. Yet despite its apparent prevalence—and increased academic attention—many core questions remain unanswered. What has propelled noir’s appeal, half a century on after its supposed decline? What has led film-makers and series-creators to rework given tropes? What debates continue to divide critics? And why are we, as viewers, so drawn to stories that often show us at our worst? Referencing a range of films and series, citing critical work in the field—while also challenging many of the assumptions made—this book sets out to advance our understanding of a subject that has fascinated audiences and academics alike. Theories relating to gender identity and neo-noir’s tricky generic status are discussed, together with an evaluation of differing comic inflections and socio-political concerns, concluding that, although neo-noir is capable of being both progressive and reactionary, it also mobilises potentially radical questions about who we are and what we might be capable of.




Someone Else's Country


Book Description

Large Print.




Moonlight Downs


Book Description

After being away from home for ten years, Emily Tempest, the daughter of a white Australian prospector and an Aboriginal woman, returns to Moonlight Downs and finds herself in the middle of a murder investigation when the leader of the camp is slain.