"'You're a politician, a public figure. What on earth were you thinking?'
Up-and-coming junior minister Gregory Buchanan has had a portrait painted of himself by the acclaimed artist Sophie White - a painting she intends to enter in this year's Archibald Prize. Until then, Gregory has hung it in pride of place on his dining-room wall. It's a life-sized standing portrait, practically photographic in nature. And it's a nude.
His wife will be home soon and he thinks the painting will be a pleasant surprise. Even more surprising will be an unexpected accumulation of guests: his sardonic mother, his fundamentalist mother-in-law, his lycra-clad cycling-enthusiast sister, and the state premier, Louisa Wetherly - a senior minister has just resigned in scandalous circumstances, and she needs Gregory to step into the spotlight ahead of the coming election.
It's going to be a wild afternoon, and an even wilder campaign - to do something about Gregory's naked ambition."
"In 1944, in the outer-Melbourne suburb of Nunawading, the brutal deaths of a family herald the return of a long-forgotten cult. A man named Anthony Prescott has declared himself the Messiah, and has promised his followers immortality. There are those who believe him - and who are ready to kill in his name.
Inspector Titus Lambert of the Melbourne Homicide unit, whose detectives are over-stretched, requests the discreet assistance of Helen Lord and Joe Sable: once members of his unit, now private inquiry agents. The investigation is more perilous than any of them realise, and will have tragic consequences."
"In the autumn of 1944, George Starling prepares to exact revenge on the person he hates most in the world (and Starling has a long list of people he hates): Detective Joe Sable of the Melbourne Homicide division. Driven by his dark passion for Nazism, Starling is going to make sure that nothing and no one will stand in his way and survive. In the meantime, Homicide is in turmoil. Riven by internal divisions and disrupted by the war, it has become a dangerous place for Joe to work. Constable Helen Lord, suspended from her position in Homicide, and battling grief, is also in Starling's sights. Knowing that Inspector Titus Lambert can't protect them from Starling's ruthless aim, Helen and Joe decide to set their own trap. But when the trap is sprung, who will be caught in it?"
"1943: The newly formed Homicide division of the Victoria Police has been struggling to counter little-known fascist groups, particularly an organisation called Australia First that has been festering since before the war. And now there's an extra problem: the bitter divide between Catholics and Protestants, which is especially raw in small rural communities. Detective Joe Sable and Constable Helen Lord are working to track down the ruthless George Starling, who in turn is planning to wreak vengeance on them for the downfall of his nationalist group and mentor. At the same time, the duo is called to investigate a double murder in the fishing village of Port Fairy. The solution seems straightforward, but it soon becomes apparent that nothing about the incident is as it seems – and that investigations which appeared unrelated are tied by a disturbing thread."
"Will Power has returned from the Northern Territory shaken, stirred and generally discombobulated. It is late 1942 and demeaningly enough, he finds himself playing a pantomime dame. If only this was his only worry… As his great hero, Shakespeare, once noted, ‘When sorrows come, they come not single spies, but in battalions.' Can Will finally overcome his tendency to be the living embodiment of Murphy's Law?"
"It's 1942, and war is raging in Europe and in the Pacific. The Japanese army is on Australia's doorstep, and the small coastal Queensland town of Maryborough is on full war footing. What they are not prepared for is the arrival in the town of a troupe of incompetent actors whose unjustifiably self-confident leader, William Power, is determined to bring his daring production of Titus Andronicus to the barbarians of rural Australia. Unfortunately for the Power Players, the only gift William Power has is a capacity for being in the wrong place at the wrong time. When a young woman goes missing and is found floating dead in the town's water supply, Power becomes the prime suspect in her murder. With every misplaced step he takes, he becomes more and more embroiled in a series of crimes which baffle the police and horrify the locals. Having no confidence in the constabulary, Power decides that his only option is to solve the crimes himself. His acting skills are not good; his detection skills are worse. As he stumbles towards a solution and as his injuries mount up, he never wavers in his belief that he alone can bring the killer to justice. But, with every day that passes, he tightens the noose around his own neck until, on the night of a violent storm, everything changes. And not for the better."
"Failed Shakespearean actor and would-be private detective William Power returns to Melbourne in this wry sequel that re-creates the tension and fear of wartime Australia. Bloodied and broken but somehow unbowed, he arrives in a town struggling under war-rationing and full of cocky American soldiers and lands squarely in the bosom of his childhood home in Carlton, now dominated by his sister-in-law, the odious Darlene. But even Will's contempt is tempered when, in the early hours of the morning, Darlene is kidnapped and Will finds his mother's kitchen splattered with blood and scattered with broken crockery. Soon, murder and the fate of the nation are added to the mix, and Will realizes that he is the only one who can solve the case."
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