Crime Scene Cessnock


Book Description

Les is back and on the detox ...All it took was a summer's day and a flat tyre on his push-bike, and Les is out on bail and on the run from a gun-happy street gang intent on a drive-by. So, with Warren's help, Les Norton defendant, becomes Len Gordon film director, safely ensconced at the ultra-swish Opal Springs Health Resort till Eddie can sort things out back in Sydney.Unfortunately, the first thing Les finds on arrival is motivational guru Alexander Holden dead at the front gate. then, before you can say 'soya beans with tahini and lime dressing', the cops arrive and Les is up to his neck in a land of a thousand acronyms, fighting off steroid-happy body builders, sex-crazed socialites, violent greyhound owners - and, worst of all, caffeine withdrawals - while at the same time matching wits with the four acrimonious writers-in-residence. Was Alexander Holden murdered? Or was it an accident? Find out in the gripping climax and food fight when all is revealed - in the library.Robert G. Barrett's latest Les Norton adventure, Crime Scene Cessnock, set in New South Wales's beautiful Pokolbin Valley, is a whodunnit with a difference, and proves once again why Barrett is, to quote the Australian newspaper, 'the king of popular fiction'.




Mostly French


Book Description

This book, which was inspired by a conference on plural conjugations of Frenchness (La France au pluriel) held in 2007 at the Universities of Technology, Sydney and Newcastle, focuses on the concept of national belonging as it pertains to detective fiction, with particular emphasis on French and Australian detective fictions and the encounter and crossing over between them. The objective is not only to use the concepts of 'French' and 'Australian' detective fiction productively, via the analysis of French and Australian detective-fiction novels, but also to challenge and undermine the very notion of national detective fictions, which are so often assumed to be transparently meaningful. The contributors to this volume focus variously on the following areas: comparative analysis of the genesis of French and Australian detective fiction; translation of Australian (and other) novels into French; translation as a genre; Frenchness as a stereotype, its role in individual novels and its spectre in all detective fiction; and readings of individual French and Australian detective novels. Overall, this book aims to challenge assumptions about French detective fiction, its influence on other national fictions and its explicit and implicit presence in all detective fiction.




The Godson: A Les Norton Novel 4


Book Description

NOW AN ABC TELEVISION DRAMA STARRING DAVID WENHAM AND REBEL WILSON Les Norton thought they were going to be the easiest two weeks of his life. Playing minder for a young member of the Royal Family called Peregrine Normanhurst III sounded like a dead-set snack. So what if he was a millionaire Hooray Henry and his godfather was the Attorney General? Les would keep Peregrine out of trouble... So what if he was on the run for the IRA? They'd never find him in Australia... The Godson moves at breakneck speed from the corridors of power in Canberra to the grimy tenements of Belfast, to climax in a nerve-shattering, blood-spattered shootout on a survivalist fortress in the Tweed Valley. If you thought Australia's favourite son could get up to some outrageous capers in his previous adventures, until you've read The Godson, you ain't read nothin' yet!




No One


Book Description

*Longlisted for the Miles Franklin Literary Award 2020* In the ghost hours of a Monday morning a man feels a dull thud against the side of his car near the entrance to Redfern Station. He doesn’t stop immediately. By the time he returns to the scene, the road is empty, but there is a dent in the car, high up on the passenger door, and what looks like blood. Only a man could have made such a dent, he thinks. For some reason he looks up, though he knows no one is there. Has he hit someone, and if so, where is the victim? So begins a story that takes us to the heart of contemporary Australia’s festering relationship to its indigenous past. A story about guilt for acts which precede us, crimes we are not sure we have committed, crimes gone on so long they now seem criminal-less. Part crime novel, part road movie, part love story, No One takes its protagonist to the very heart of a nation where non-existence is the true existence, where crimes cannot be resolved and guilt cannot be redeemed, and no one knows what to do with ghosts that are real.




And de Fun Don't Done


Book Description

They don't call him Lucky Les for nothing. A ticket in a raffle and Norton was off to see to US of A–Siestasota, Florida, where it turned out hot, red hot, and it wasn't just the weather.Night club brawls, mafia hitmen, too many girls called Lori, gun crazed Americans and the whole lot washed along in a sea of margaritas. Even for Les Norton it was just too hot to handle. So it was off to 'greener' pastures–the Caribbean–for reggae, rum and Rastafarians, not to mention Sultry Delta, sweet-lipped Esme, and Millwood Downie, schoolteacher, historian and would-be stand-up comic, who helps Les trace his family tree and possibly uncover the biggest earn ever.The world is finally Norton's oyster. All he has to do is get the shell open.




Trust Me When I Lie


Book Description

"An outstanding debut—confident, compelling, with a surprise around every corner."—Jane Harper, New York Times bestselling author From the author of Everyone In My Family Has Killed Someone and Everyone On This Train Is A Suspect, a thrilling mystery that proves the only difference between the hero of a story and the villain is your perspective. Producer Jack Quick knows how to frame a story so the murder mystery makes an impact. So says the subject of Jack's new true crime docuseries, Curtis Wade, who was convicted for killing a young woman four years ago. In the eyes of Jack's viewers, flimsy evidence and police bias sent an innocent man to jail...but off-screen, Jack himself has doubts. Curtis could be a murderer. But when the series finale is wildly successful, a retrial sees Curtis walk free. And then another victim turns up dead. To set things right, Jack goes back to the sleepy vineyard town where it all began, bent on discovering what really happened. Because behind the many stories he tells, the truth is Jack's last chance. He may have sprung a killer from jail, but he's also the one that can send him back. A novel examining the darkness that lurks beneath the stories we tell ourselves, Trust Me When I Lie is the perfect book for fans of true crime exposés like I'll Be Gone in the Dark and riveting murder mysteries like The Trespasser by Tana French.




Forensic Investigator


Book Description

FORENSIC INVESTIGATOR Geoff Bernasconi had always been passionate about his job as a policeman in rural New South Wales and, from the earliest days of his career, went the extra mile, both for victims of crime and for their families. But one night in 1984, he was called to investigate the scene of an horrific car accident in which an entire family had been wiped out – and which it was impossible for him to forget. Geoff's day-to-day working life became a catalogue of tragedies, some of which involved people close to him, and he found himself spiralling downwards in the grip of post-traumatic stress disorder. When Esther Mckay, fellow forensic investigator and author of the best-selling Crime Scene, heard that Geoff has been awarded maximum compensation for his suffering, she knew immediately this was a story that needed to be told. This is a harrowing account of what it is like to work on the front-line of crime and tragedy as a forensic investigator. But it is also the inspiring story of someone who has been exposed to sights and experiences many of us can hardly even imagine, yet has emerged from the darkness to begin his journey to recovery.




I Catch Killers


Book Description

THE #1 TRUE CRIME BESTSELLER. Serial killings, child abductions, organised crime hits and domestic murders. This is the memoir of a homicide detective. WINNER OF 2021 DANGER PRIZE FOR NON-FICTION Here I am: tall and broad, shaved head, had my nose broken three times fighting. Black suit, white shirt, the big city homicide detective. I've led investigations into serial killings, child abductions, organised crime hits and domestic murders. But beneath the suit, I've got an Om symbol in the shape of a Buddha tattooed on my right bicep. It balances the tattoo on my left ribs: Better to die on your feet than live on your knees. That's how I choose to live my life. As a cop, I got paid to catch killers and I learned what doing it can cost you. It cost me marriages and friendships. It cost me my reputation. They tell you not to let a case get personal, but I think it has to. Each one has taken a piece out of me and added a piece, until there's only pieces. I catch killers - it's what I do. It's who I am. Gary Jubelin was one of Australia's most celebrated detectives, leading investigations into the disappearance of preschooler William Tyrrell, the serial killing of three Aboriginal children in Bowraville and the brutal gangland murder of Terry Falconer. During his 34-year career, Detective Chief Inspector Jubelin also ran the crime scene following the Lindt Cafe siege, investigated the death of Caroline Byrne and recovered the body of Matthew Leveson. Jubelin retired from the force in 2019. This is his story.




Guns 'n' Rosé


Book Description

NOW AN ABC TELEVISION DRAMA STARRING DAVID WENHAM AND REBEL WILSON Norton needed a holiday-anywhere-as long as it was out of Bondi. Price was only too willing to oblige-Les could have his house at Terrigal. All he had to do was look after George Brennan's nephew for a week while he was there. Sounded okay to Norton, and it was better than spending his own money.Jimmy Rosewater was young, cool and the original brown-eyed handsome man. He loved good wine, going to restaurants, going line-dancing, and the ladies loved him. This suited Les nicely. But, Jimmy was also supposed to be in jail. Before he knows it, Norton is fighting off the usual yobbos looking for trouble, sex-crazed feral aunties and getting shot at by feral bikies. That was during the quieter moments...and all the time Les has a feeling Jimmy's up to something...




Gangland Sydney


Book Description

Gangland Sydney details the exploits of an unforgettable cast of villains, crooks and mobsters who have defined the criminal and gangland scene in Sydney from the mid-1800s to the present day.In this compelling book, Britain’s top true crime author James Morton and barrister and legal broadcaster Susanna Lobez track the rise and fall of Sydney’s standover men, contract killers, robbers, brothel keepers, biker gangs and drug dealers, and also examine the role of police, politicians and lawyers who have helped and hindered the growth of these criminal empires.Vivid and explosive, Gangland Sydney is compulsive reading.