Sutherland Shire Libraries News

Check out these new fiction and non -fiction titles from 30-31 August Spectrum, you can request them from the Library.

The Cat with the Coloured Tail by Gillian Mears. ill.by Dinalie Dabarera
Mr Hooper and The Cat with the Coloured Tail travel through the countryside in their ice-cream van. They enjoy looking for heart shapes (their favourite game) and making people happy with their delicious moon-creams. But a dark feeling is following the cat. Something is wrong. When the ice-cream van enters the forest, Mr Hooper and the cat realise the heart of the world is in danger. Will they be able to save it? A lyrical fable about love and healing.





The Bit in Between by Claire Varley
After an unfortunate incident in an airport lounge involving an immovable customs officer, a full jar of sun-dried tomatoes and the capricious hand of fate, Oliver meets Alison. In spite of this less than romantic start, Oliver falls in love with her. Immediately. Inexplicably. Irrevocably. With no other place to be, Alison follows Oliver to the Solomon Islands where he is planning to write his much-anticipated second novel. But as Oliver's story begins to take shape, odd things start to happen and he senses there may be more hinging on his novel than the burden of expectation. As he gets deeper into the manuscript and Alison moves further away from him, Oliver finds himself clinging to a narrative that may not end with 'happily ever after'.

Bergstrom's Orange by Carolyn Little
Charismatic photographer and ex-ranger Jason McNeil lives and works in the iconic Daintree forest in Far North Queensland, the oldest surviving rainforest on the planet. Jason encounters the reclusive and awkward Swede Nils Bergstrom, who is searching for a cure for an horrific disease which he encountered in Africa, which also occurs in the Daintree. When Nils disappears, Jason, assisted by his girlfriend, Sunita, a masseuse at a Port Douglas resort, starts to ask questions. Jason and his friend Steve, a member of the local Yalanji people, head into the rainforest along the notorious CREB track and undertake a treacherous hike up Roaring Meg creek. They locate Nils but in tragic circumstances. Even though the police are now involved, Jason continues with his own investigation, which brings him into danger as he gradually exposes a web of competing interests. This entertaining and informative contemporary thriller explores the growing interest in biodiscovery and the modern crime of biopiracy, against the back-drop of the beauty and challenges of the Daintree World Heritage site, a startling contrast to the laid-back and popular resort world of Port Douglas.


The Orpheus Clock by Simon Goodman
The author's grandparents came from German-Jewish banking dynasties, and perished in concentration camps. That is almost all he knew about them, his father rarely spoke of their family history or heritage. But when he passed away and Simon received his father's old papers, a story began to emerge. The Gutmanns rose from a small Bohemian hamlet to become one of Germany's most powerful banking families. They also amassed a magnificent, world-class art collection that included works by Degas, Renoir, Botticelli, Guardi, and many others. But the Nazi regime snatched from them everything they had worked to build: their remarkable art, their immense wealth, their prominent social standing and their very lives. Simon grew up in London with little knowledge of his father's efforts to recover their family's prized possession. It was only after his father's death that Simon began to piece together theclues about the Gutmanns' stolen legacy and the Jazi looting machine. Through painstaking detective work across two continents, Simon has been able to prove that many works belonged to his family and to successfully secure their return. This book reveals a rich family history almost obliterated by the Nazis. It is not only the account of a twenty-year long detective hunt for family treasure, but an unforgettable tale of redemption and restoration.

I'm not racist but ... 40 years of the Racial Discrimination Act / Tim Soutphommasane ; [with contributions by] Maxine Beneba Clarke, Bindi Cole Chocka, Benjamin Law, Alice Pung and Christos Tsiolkas
Is Australia a racist country? The question persists, in spite of our multicultural success. Race continues to be a lightning rod of public debate. Australia may be relaxed and comfortable about many things, but it remains unsettled about matters of race and culture. The Racial Discrimination Act is Australia’s first federal human rights legislation. A landmark law, the RDA has had a profound impact on race relations. Published to coincide with the 40th anniversary of the RDA, this book provides a considered, accessible reflection on Australian racism, the limits of free speech, the moral and philosophical dimensions of bigotry, and the role of the RDA in our society’s response to discrimination.

Australia's most murderous prison : behind the walls of Goulburn jail / James Phelps
An unprecedented spate of murders in the 1990's - seven in just three years - made Goulburn jail the most feared prison in Australia. Inmates who were sent to the towering sandstone menace, located an hour and half south west of Sydney, declared they had been given the death sentence. Every man who entered the prison was marked for death, and not because of his crime. In the Killing Fields you were murdered because of the colour of your skin. The worst race war in the history of Australian prisons saw four groups; the Aboriginals, the Lebanese, the Asians, and rest, wage a vicious and uncontrollable war as they battled for control of the prison drug trade. Every day there were stabbings. Every day there were bashings. And when they weren't being bashed or stabbed, they were being murdered... The vicious riot, the one that saw guards belted with didgeridoos and stabbed with broken broomsticks, put an end to the segregation that saw Goulburn jail the only prison in the world to separate men by race. It also ended the Killing Field. But soon something far scarier would rise, something called SuperMax... Called a variety of things from "Australia's most secure prison'' to a "hell hole'', SuperMax is the only prison has seen complaints referred to the United Nations. All white walls and solitary confinement, it is where Australia's most evil men are locked away. It is home to Ivan Milat, to the Cobby Killers, to Bilal Skaf, and to Bassam Hamzy to name a few. And soon you will meet them all; murderers, rapists, terrorists. This is Australia's Most Murderous Prison, the Killing Fields, Inside the Walls of Goulburn Jail.

The Ned Kelly Awards for crime writing 2015 have been announced. It is the 20th Anniversary of the prestigious Ned Kelly Awards for Crime Writing, with the winners being announced at the Bella Union on Saturday August 22, as part of Melbourne Writers Festival.

Congratulations to all the winners.

Best Crime
Eden by Candice Fox
Most police duos run on trust, loyalty, and the desire to see killers in court. But Detective Frank Bennett's partner, the enigmatic Eden Archer, has nothing to offer him but darkness and danger. She doesn't mind catching killers – but it's not the courthouse where her justice is served.

And now Eden is about to head undercover to find three missing girls. The only link between the victims is a remote farm where the desperate go to hide and blood falls more often than rain. For Frank, the priority is to keep his partner monitored 24/7 while she's there – but is it for Eden's protection, or to protect their suspects from her?

Across the city at the Utulla Tip, someone is watching Hades Archer, a man whose criminal reputation is the stuff of legend. Unmasking the stalker for him might be just what Frank needs to stay out of trouble while Eden's away.

But it's going to take a trip into Hades's past to discover the answers - and what Frank uncovers may well put everyone in danger



Best First Crime
Quota by Jock Serong

Charlie Jardim has just trashed his legal career in a spectacular courtroom meltdown, and his girlfriend has finally left him. So when a charitable colleague slings him a prosecution brief that will take him to the remote coastal town of Dauphin, Charlie reluctantly agrees that the sea air might be good for him.

The case is a murder. The victim was involved in the illegal abalone trade and the even more illegal drug trade. and the witnesses aren’t talking.

And as Dauphin closes ranks around him, Charlie is about to find his interest in the law powerfully reignited.



Best True Crime
On the evening of 4 September 2005, Father’s Day, Robert Farquharson, a separated husband, was driving his three sons home to their mother, Cindy, when his car left the road and plunged into a dam. The boys, aged ten, seven and two, drowned. Was this an act of revenge or a tragic accident? The court case became Helen Garner’s obsession. She followed it on its protracted course until the final verdict.

In this utterly compelling book, Helen Garner tells the story of a man and his broken life. She presents the theatre of the courtroom with its actors and audience, all gathered for the purpose of bearing witness to the truth, players in the extraordinary and unpredictable drama of the quest for justice.

The shortlisted works in each category are:

Best Crime

Sweet One by Peter Docker
Eden by Candice Fox
A Murder Unmentioned by Sulari Gentill
Gun Street Girl by Adrian McKinty
Crucifixion Creek by Barry Maitland
Present Darkness by Malla Nunn

Best First Crime

King of the Road by Nigel Bartlett
What Came Before by Anna George
Chasing the Ace by Nicholas J Johnson
Quota by Jock Serong

Best True Crime

This House of Grief by Helen Garner
He Who Must Be Obeid by Kate McClymont and Linton Besser
The Feel-Good Hit of the Year by Liam Pieper
The Fall by Amy Dale
The Family Court Murders by Debi Marshall
The Murder of Allison Baden-Clay by David Murray

Check out these new fiction and non -fiction titles from 22-23 August Spectrum, you can request them from the Library.

Death is a welcome guest by Louise Welsh
The second instalment in the thrilling new Plague Times trilogy from the author of A Lovely Way to Burn.

Magnus McFall was a comic on the brink of his big break when the world came to an end. Now, he is a man on the run and there is nothing to laugh about.

Thrown into unwilling partnership with an escaped convict, Magnus flees the desolation of London to make the long journey north, clinging to his hope that the sickness has not reached his family on their remote Scottish island.

He finds himself in a landscape fraught with danger, fighting for his place in a world ruled by men, like his fellow traveller Jeb - practical men who do not let pain or emotions interfere with getting the job done.

This is a world with its own justice, and new rules.
Where people, guns and food are currency.
Where survival is everything.


Footy Dreaming by Michael Hyde
Ben and Noah play on opposing teams in a footy-obsessed town. They each dream of playing on the G – and this is their make or break season. Tensions rise as sledging goes too far. Will Noah lose his cool, and his chance, in the face of prejudice? Will Ben reject racism and forge his own path? Noah and Ben have the potential to play in the AFL. It’s up to each of them whether they make it.





Surveillance by Bernard Keane
The government is spying on everyone. But who is spying on the government?

A ruthless online activist group called Kittehsaurus Rox has hacked into top-secret Cabinet information and gone public with it, creating widespread panic and embarrassing a government that will stop at nothing to hunt down 'KSR'.

Journalist and cyber-expert Kat Sharpe is chosen by KSR to break news of their operations, and overnight she becomes the media sensation she has always longed to be. But as she gets closer to KSR and its circle of supporters, she can't shake the feeling that something doesn't add up.

Cybersecurity company Veldtech Industries is in line to make a fortune out of the carnage created by the hackers. But they have their own desperate secrets to protect - from the government and from each other.

The Water Book by Alok Jha
Water is the most every day of substances. It pours from our taps and falls from the sky. We drink it, wash with it, and couldn't live without it. Yet, on closer examination it is also a very strange substance (it is one of only a very small number of molecules which expand when cooled). Look closer again and water reveals itself as a key to a scientific story on the biggest of canvases. Water is crucial to our survival - life depends on it - but it was also fundamental in the origins of life on Earth. The millions of gallons of water which make up our rivers, lakes and oceans, originated in outer space. How it arrived here and how those molecules of water were formed, is a story which takes us back to the beginning of the universe. Indeed, we know more about the depths of space than we do about the furthest reaches of the oceans. Water has also shaped the world we live in. Whether it is by gently carving the Grand Canyon over millennia, or in shaping how civilisations were built; we have settled our cities along rivers and coasts. Scientific studies show how we feel calmer and more relaxed when next to water. We holiday by the seas and lakes. Yet one day soon wars may be fought over access to water. The Water Book will change the way you look at water. After reading it you will be able to hold a glass of water up to the light and see within it a strange molecule that connects you to the origins of life, the birth (and death) of the universe, and to everyone who ever lived.

My life in ruins : from Petra to Glenrowan my adventures and misadventures in archaeology by Adam Ford
Adam Ford is an archaeologist. Not only has be been on expeditions to unlock the mysteries of the past in the Caribbean, British Isles, Jordan, Syria, Israel, United Arab Emirates and Australia. He's also had heat stroke, hypothermia, and dysentery; been chased by camel spiders, walked on by scorpions and pestered by bugs big enough to ride. In more than 20 years roaming the globe, he's lived in some of the most remote locations in the world and suffered the back-breaking and soul-destroying monotony of shifting tonnes of dirt with a shovel. From Cold War bunkers in England to Bronze Age cities on the Euphrates, remotes caves in the Jordan Valley, shipwrecks in Western Australia and burials in Barbados, Adam has dug, dived, abseiled and trekked his way into history. Part memoir, part potted history of civilisation, My Life in Ruins is the story of a life lived in uncovering the past.

The sex myth : the gap between our fantasies and reality by Rachel Hills
Fifty years after the sexual revolution, we are told that we live in a time of unprecedented sexual freedom; that, if anything, we are too free now. But beneath the veneer of glossy hedonism, millennial journalist Rachel Hills argues that we are controlled by a new brand of sexual convention: one which influences all of us - woman or man, straight or gay, liberal or conservative. At the root of this silent code lies the Sex Myth - the defining significance we invest in sexuality that once meant we were dirty if we did have sex, and now means we are defective if we don't do it enough.

The Children's Book Council of Australia award winners were announced  Friday 20 August at 12noon.  These awards are presented annually for books of literary merit, for outstanding contribution to Australian children's literature, and for new talent. Congratulations to all the winners.


Seventy-three thousand convicts were transported to the British penal colony of Van Diemen’s Land in the first half of the nineteenth century. They played a vital role in the building of the settlements, as well as the runningof the newly established colony.

Simon Barnard’s A–Z of Convicts in Van Diemen’s Land is a rich and compelling account of the lives of the men, women and children who were transported to Tasmania for crimes ranging from stealing bread to poisoning family members. Their sentences, punishments, achievements and suffering make for fascinating reading.

And the spectacular illustrations, each one carefully drawn in meticulous detail from contemporary records, bring this extraordinary history to life.



 Nona & Me  by Clare Atkins (Honour book)

Intruder by Christine Bongers

 Are You Seeing Me? by Darren Groth

The Incredible Adventures of Cinnamon Girl  by Melissa Keil

 The Minnow by  Diana Sweeney (Honour book)

 The Protected by Claire Zorn
Two Wolves by Tristan Bancks (Honour book)

 The Simple Things by Bill Condon ill. Beth Norling

 The Cleo Stories: The Necklace and the Present by Libby Gleeson, ill. Freya Blackwood

 Bleakboy and Hunter Stand out in the Rain by  Stephen Herrick

 Figgy in the World by Tamsin Janu

 Withering-by-Sea: a Stella Montgomery Intrigue by Judith Rossell (Honour book)


 Pig the Pug by Aaron Blabey.

 Scary Night by Lesley Gibbes  ill. Stephen Michael King (Honour book)

 Go to Sleep, Jessie! by Libby Gleeson,  ill. Freya Blackwood.

 A House of Her Own by Jenny Hughes ill. Jonathan Bentley

 Snail and Turtle are Friends by Stephen Michael King

 Noni the Pony goes to  the Beach by Alison Lester (Honour book)
 Rivertime by Trace Balla

 My Two Blankets ill. by Freya Blackwood. Text:  Irena Kobald

 One Minute's Silence ill. by Michael Camilleri. Text:  David Metzenthen (Honour book)

 The Duck and the Darklings ill. by Stephen Michael King. Text: Glenda Millard

 The Stone Lion ill. by Ritva Voutila. Text: Margaret Wild (Honour book)

 Fire ill. by Bruce Whatley. Text: Jackie French


 A-Z of Convicts in Van  Diemen’s Land by Simon Barnard

 Coming of Age: Growing up  Muslim in Australia by Demet Divaroren, & Amra Pajalic (editors).

 Mary's Australia: How Mary  Mackillop Changed Australia by Pamela Freeman

Tea and Sugar Christmas by Jane Jolly,  ill. by Robert Ingpen (Honour book)

 Emu by Claire Saxby,  ill. Graham Byrne

Audacity: Stories of Heroic Australians in Wartime by Carlie Walker,  Ill. Brett Hatherly (Honour book)

The forgotten girls by Sara Blaedel ; translated by Signe Rød Golly
This is a disturbing, disturbing novel. Louise Rick starts her new job as the head of the Missing Persons Unit in Hvalso, her home town in Denmark. Her first case is to identify a middle aged woman found dead in the forest. She thinks this will be easy because of the shocking scar down one side of the woman's face. But Louise has no success until she releases a photo of the woman to the media and a former employee of state mental institution rings to say that she cared for Lismette many years ago.

Although nobody wants to talk and people keep putting obstacles in her way, Louise eventually discovers that Lismette is actually called Lise, and that she has a twin sister, Mette. They were taken into care after doctors convinced their father that he was incapable of looking after them. Lisemette, like the other children in the institution, was branded a ''forgotten girl.The doctor at the mental institution, long since dead, had signed death certificates when the girls were 17, reporting the cause of death as pneumonia. How is it then, that 30 years later Lise's barely cold body is found in the forest?  Where has she been all this time?  And where is Mette, who appears to still be alive?  And how will Louise explain all of this to the twins' traumatised father?

At the same time Louise is trying to solve this mystery, bodies of local women keep turning up and a suspicious white van is seen in the vicinity of the forest around the time of the attacks. Translated from the Danish, this is the first Scandinavian crime novel that really disturbed me. As the author races you towards the conclusion, Louise finds more secrets buried in the forest and the horrifying conclusion left me stunned.
~Deb H

Crewel by Gennifer Albin
Incapable, Awkward, Artless - That's what the other girls whisper behind her back. But sixteen-year-old Adelice Lewys has a secret - she wants to fail. Gifted with the ability to weave time and matter, Adelice is exactly what the Guild is looking for, and in the world of Arras, being chosen as a Spinster is everything a girl could want. It means privilege, power and beauty, the ability to embroider the very fabric of life. It also means entering a world secrets and lethal intrigue. But unlike the others, Adelice isn't interested in controlling what people eat, where they live, and how many children they have and will do anything to hide her talent from the Guild. But when she slips up during her final test, her gift is identified. Now she has one hour to eat her mum's overcooked dinner. She has one hour to listen to her sister's school gossip and laugh at her dad's stupid jokes. She has one hour to pretend everything is OK. And she has one hour to escape. Because once you become a Spinster, there's no turning back..

The reluctant assassin by Eoin Colfer
It all began with the F.B.I. and W.A.R.P.  (Witness Anonymous Relocation Programme) hiding witnesses in the past to protect the future - until now . . .

Riley is a Victorian orphan, hurtled into the twenty-first century and on the run from his evil master . . .

Albert Garrick, the terrifying assassin-for-hire pursuing Riley through time, along with . . .

Chevie Savano, the F.B.I.'s youngest and most impulsive special agent.

As Garrick relentlessly hunts them down, Riley and Chevie face a desperate race to stay alive and stop Garrick from returning to his own time - armed with knowledge and power that could change the world forever.

Cress by Marissa Meyer
Incarcerated in a satellite, an expert hacker and out to save the world - Cress isn't your usual damsel in distress.

Cress grew-up as a prisoner. With only netscreens for company she's forced to do the bidding of the evil Queen Levana.  Now that means tracking down Cinder and her handsome accomplice Emperor Kai. But little does Levana know that those she seeks, and the man she loves, are plotting her downfall . . .

As paths cross and the price of freedom rises, happily ever after has never seemed further away for Cress, Scarlet and Cinder.

This is not the fairy tale you remember.  But it's one you won't forget.


Reckoning by Kerrie Wilkinson
One girl. One reckoning. One destiny.
In the village of Martindale, hundreds of miles north of the new English capital of Windsor, sixteen-year-old Silver Blackthorn takes the Reckoning. This coming-of-age test not only decides her place in society - Elite, Member, Inter or Trog - but also determines that Silver is to become an Offering for King Victor.
But these are uncertain times and no-one really knows what happens to the teenagers who disappear into Windsor Castle. Is being an Offering the privilege everyone assumes it to be, or do the walls of the castle have something to hide?


The Infinite Sea by Rick Yancey
How do you rid the earth of seven billion humans? Rid the humans of their humanity.

Cassie Sullivan and her companions lived through the Others' four waves of destruction. Now, with the human race nearly exterminated and the 5th Wave rolling across the landscape, they face a choice: brace for winter and hope for Evan Walker's return, or set out in search of other survivors before the enemy closes in. Because the next attack is more than possible – it's inevitable.

No one can anticipate the depths to which the Others will sink – nor the heights to which humanity will rise . . .

Wither by  Lauren DeStefano
By age sixteen, Rhine Ellery has four years left to live. A botched effort to create a perfect race has left all males born with a lifespan of 25 years, and females a lifespan of 20 years--leaving the world in a state of panic. Geneticists seek a miracle antidote to restore the human race, desperate orphans crowd the population, crime and poverty have skyrocketed, and young girls are being kidnapped and sold as polygamous brides to bear more children.




Legend by Marie Lu
The United States is gone, along with its flooded coasts. North America's two warring nations, the western Republic and the eastern Colonies, have reached a breaking point. In the midst of this broken continent and dark new world are two teenagers who will go down in history... Born into the slums of the Republic's Lake sector, fifteen-year old Day is the country's most wanted criminal. A mysterious boy with no recorded image or fingerprints. A boy who should no longer exist. Born to an elite family in the wealthy Ruby sector, fifteen-year old June is the Republic's most promising prodigy. Obedient, passionate, and committed to her country - until the day her brother Metias is murdered during a break-in at the plague hospital. Only one person could be responsible. Day.

It's the end of the world as we know it by Saci Lloyd
Welcome to a world controlled by a megalomaniac Lolcat. A world where data pirates, zombies and infobots on surfboards roam free. A world at war over cheese ... When teenager Mikey Malone gets sucked through a wormhole into this parallel world, he discovers a power-crazed corporation is planning to use Earth as a dumping ground for an uncontrollable poisonous algae. It's a race against time for Mikey and his rebel friends to stop the ruthless tyrants from getting their way. A laugh-out-loud-funny new sci-fi series from Costa-shortlisted author Saci Lloyd, perfect for devotees of Terry Pratchett and Douglas Adams.

Altered by Jennifer Rush
"They were made to forget. But they'll never forgive." Everything about Anna's life is a secret. Her father works for the Branch, at the helm of its latest project: monitoring and administering treatments to the four genetically altered boys in the lab below their farmhouse. There's Nick, solemn and brooding; Cas, light-hearted and playful; Trev, smart and caring; and Sam who's stolen Anna's heart. When the Branch decides it's time to take the boys, Sam stages an escape. Anna's father pushes her to go with them, making Sam promise to keep her away from the Branch, "at all costs." On the run, with her father's warning in her head, Anna begins to doubt everything she thought she knew about herself. She soon discovers that she and Sam are connected in more ways than either of them expected. And if they're both going to survive, they must piece together the clues of their past before the Branch catches up to them and steals it all away.

White space by Ilsa J. Bick
A seventeen-year-old girl jumps between the lines of books and into the white space where realities are created and destroyed but who may herself be nothing more than a character written into being from an alternative universe.

The hen who dreamed she could fly / Sun-mi Hwang ; translated by Chi-Young Kim ; illustrations by Nomoco
This is the story of a hen named Sprout. No longer content to lay eggs on command, only to have them carted off to the market, she glimpses her future every morning through the barn doors, where the other animals roam free, and comes up with a plan to escape into the wild—and to hatch an egg of her own.





 A Paris Apartment by Michelle Gable
When April Vogt's boss tells her about an apartment in the ninth arrondissement that has been discovered after being shuttered for the past seventy years, the Sotheby's continental furniture specialist does not hear the words "dust" or "rats" or "decrepit." She hears Paris. She hears escape.
Once in France, April quickly learns the apartment is not merely some rich hoarder's repository. Beneath the cobwebs and stale perfumed air is a goldmine, and not because of the actual gold (or painted ostrich eggs or mounted rhinoceros horns or bronze bathtub). First, there's a portrait by one of the masters of the Belle Epoque, Giovanni Boldini. And then there are letters and journals written by the very woman in the painting, Marthe de Florian. These documents reveal that she was more than a renowned courtesan with enviable decolletage. Suddenly April's quest is no longer about the bureaux plats and Louis-style armchairs that will fetch millions at auction. It's about discovering the story behind this charismatic woman.

Desire for chocolate / Care Santos ; translated by Julie Wark
Three women, three centuries and the same porcelain chocolate pot: Sara, the scion of a dynasty of chocolatiers from Barcelona, who prides herself on maintaining the family tradition; Aurora, the daughter of a nineteenth-century maidservant, for whom chocolate is a forbidden luxury; Mariana, the wife of a famous seventeenth-century chocolate manufacturer, an official purveyor to the French court and the inventor of a revolutionary chocolate mill.





Endurance by Tim Griffiths
This novel tells the story of a real-life Australian hero, photographer, explorer and adventurer Frank Hurley. It is a story told through his eyes and in his words, and it reveals a tantalising portrait of the man behind the legend he has become.
Hurley's photographs and documentaries of Douglas Mawson's and Ernest Shackleton's Antarctic expeditions, and his astounding images of World War I have been so widely exhibited and reproduced that in many cases they are the principal means by which we have come to see those world-shattering events. His iconic images of the ship Endurance trapped in an ocean of ice, of men battling the most extreme elements in the Antarctic, and suffering under unthinkable conditions in war are imprinted on the Australian consciousness. One writer has claimed that Frank Hurley 'is the twentieth century'.
R&R by Mark Dapin
John 'Nashville' Grant is an American military policeman in the R&R town of Vung Tau, tucked safely behind the front lines of the Vietnam War. Nashville knows how everything works: the army, the enemy, bars, secrets, men and women. He's keeping the peace by keeping his head down and making the most of it.
His new partner is a tall man from a small town: Shorty, from Bendigo. Shorty knows nothing about anything, and he wishes people would stop mistaking that for stupidity.
When another MP shoots a corpse in a brothel, the delicate balance between the military police, South Vietnamese gangsters and the Viet Cong is upset. Nashville and his partner are drawn into the heart of the matter by their violent colleague Sergeant Caution, the obsequious landlord Moreau, the improbable entrepreneur Izzy Berger and the mysterious, omnipotent Mamasan. Events begin to force the pair to uphold the law and eventually to take it into their own hands.

Oblivion / Arnaldur Indriðason ; translated from the Icelandic by Victoria Cribb
The Quick..
A woman swims in a remote, milky-blue lagoon. Steam rises from the water and as it clears, a body is revealed in the ghostly light.

The Dead..
Miles away, a vast aircraft hangar rises behind the perimeter fence of the US military base. A sickening thud is heard as a man’s body falls from a high platform.

The forgotten...
Many years before, a schoolgirl went missing. The world has forgotten her. But Erlendur has not.

The Searcher...
Erlendur Sveinsson is a newly promoted detective with a battered body, a rogue CIA operative and America’s troublesome presence in Iceland to contend with. In his spare time he investigates a cold case. He is only starting out but he is already up to his neck.

The flower arrangement by Ella Griffin
Golden peonies bowing their heads beneath blue delphinium bells. Delicate pink anemones threaded between freckled green orchids. Soft apricot roses woven together with velvety purple irises.
Every bouquet tells a story.
And every story begins at Blossom & Grow, a tiny jewel-like flower shop in the heart of Dublin. Here, among the buckets of fragrant blooms, beneath the flickering candles and lanterns, Lara works her magic. Translating feelings into flower arrangements that change hearts and lives.
But what about her own heart? Has she really healed since she lost her chance to be a mother? What will happen when her own story takes a sudden turn?
Can the flowers that heal the customers work their magic on the florist?

The book of speculation / Erika Swyler, with illustrations by the author
Simon Watson, a young librarian, lives alone on the Long Island Sound in his family home, a house perched on the edge of a cliff that is slowly crumbling into the sea. His parents are long dead, his mother having drowned in the water his house overlooks.
One day, Simon receives a mysterious book from an antiquarian bookseller; it has been sent to him because it is inscribed with the name Verona Bonn, Simon's grandmother.
Simon must unlock the mysteries of the book, and decode his family history, before fate deals its next deadly hand. The Book of Speculation is Erika Swyler's gorgeous and moving debut, a wondrous novel about the power of books, family, and magic.

Devastation Road by Jason Hewitt
Spring, 1945: A man wakes in a field in a country he does not know. Injured and confused, he pulls himself to his feet and starts to walk, and so sets out on an extraordinary journey in search of his home, his past and himself.
His name is Owen. A war he has only a vague memory of joining is in its dying days, and as he tries to get back to England he becomes caught up in the flood of refugees pouring through Europe. Among them is a teenage boy, Janek, and together they form an unlikely alliance as they cross battle-worn Germany. When they meet a troubled young woman, tempers flare and scars are revealed as Owen gathers up the shattered pieces of his life. No one is as he remembers, not even himself - how can he truly return home when he hardly recalls what home is?

After the crash / Michel Bussi ; translated from the French by Sam Taylor
On the night of 22 December 1980, a plane crashes on the Franco-Swiss border and is engulfed in flames. 168 out of 169 passengers are killed instantly. The miraculous sole survivor is a three-month-old baby girl. Two families, one rich, the other poor, step forward to claim her, sparking an investigation that will last for almost two decades. Is she Lyse-Rose or Emilie?
Eighteen years later, having failed to discover the truth, private detective Credule Grand-Duc plans to take his own life, but not before placing an account of his investigation in the girl's hands. But, as he sits at his desk about to pull the trigger, he uncovers a secret that changes everything - then is killed before he can breathe a word of it to anyone...