Showing results by narrator "Peter Hosking" in All Categories

An intriguing case for Detective-Inspector Napoleon Bonaparte begins on a calm October day in an Australian seaside town. Three men set out to sea for a day's fishing ... and do not return. Despite intensive searches, no trace of the men or their boat is found until, weeks later, a passing trawler hauls in a gruesome catch - the head of one of the missing fishermen. It is quite clear that its owner was murdered with a pistol bullet. But by whom, and why, is for Bony to find out.

Is Sydney gun city? It certainly seems so when Cliff Hardy is hired by entrepreneur and one-time pistol-shooting champion Timothy Greenhall to investigate the violent death of his troubled son. Soon Hardy is pitched into a world of crooked cops - former members of the Gun Control Unit - outlaw bikies and honest police trying to clean the stables quietly. Two more murders raise the stakes, and relationships are stretched to the breaking point.

When it's only 24 hours into a new case and PI Cliff Hardy's already been heavied, you know that the job is going to get his full attention. Cliff has been hired by high-flying consultant Martin Price to find out who's been supplying heroin to Price's teenage daughter - who in turn has got her beautiful young stepmother hooked. The well-heeled suburb of Lugarno seems an unlikely hotbed of drug-dealing and corruption, but Cliff is finding out the hard way that crime and violence come calling even at posh addresses.

The woman was bad news; Cliff knew he shouldn't have taken the case. Now his gun's been stolen, he's wanted by the police and all he has to go on is a mutilated photograph. Cliff Hardy rubs elbows with Sydney's blue bloods in his latest case, involving murder threats received by a woman filing for divorce. The clues explode when the Australian private eye stumbles upon the high society husband and his mistress - just as the house bursts into a fireball. Now Cliff is fighting for his life.

As a young and outspoken priest, Luca Rossini was brutally tortured in an Argentine military prison, and then nursed back to health by the beautiful Isabel. Exiled to Rome to avoid scandal, Rossini becomes a cardinal and the pope's confidante. He is admired and feared by his colleagues, for he understands the Church and speaks frankly. When the pope becomes gravely ill and a successor must be chosen, Rossini takes a central role. In the midst of the political intrigue that surrounds the selection of a new pope, Isabel arrives in Rome - along with Rossini's daughter.

In 1936, Daryl Tonkin and his brother, Harry, leave home in search of adventure. They find themselves in West Gippsland, Victoria, and set up a timber mill at Jackson's Track - a dreamtime place, a place that was paradise. A bushman dedicated to his work, Daryl discovers happiness there - and unexpectedly falls in love. But Daryl is white and Euphie is black, and neither of them is prepared for the conflict their forbidden love ignites. This spellbinding memoir recaptures a community and a way of life now vanished from sight.

Full of unforgettable characters and humour, this is the original edition of On Our Selection as it was first written. These are Steele Rudd's immensely popular stories about the selection on the Darling Downs in Queensland where Dad, Mother, Dave, and the rest of the family nearly starve, and eventually prosper. Rudd meant them as a tribute to small selectors like his own family.

Why were we never told? Why didn't we know? Historian Henry Reynolds has found himself being asked these questions by many people, over many years, in all parts of Australia. The acclaimed Why Weren't We Told? is a frank account of his personal journey towards the realisation that he, like generations of Australians, grew up with a distorted and idealised version of the past.

An elemental force present at the creation of Australian rock 'n' roll, Johnny O'Keefe converted incredible drive, a tremendous flair for showmanship and a comic spirit into status as Australia's first rock star and a national icon. Johnny was dead at 43 after 30 hit singles, 28 albums, and a succession of self-inflicted disasters. Today " Shout", "Wild One", "I'm Counting on You" and "Sing" remain as indelible hallmarks of the early years of Australian rock 'n' roll.

By a lonely roadside in the south-west corner of Western Australia, old-timer Karl Mueller is roused from his drink-sodden sleep by approaching footsteps and the sound of whistling. What he sees on waking (or he thinks he sees) is enough to make him stiffen with fear, and more than enought to worry the police into calling for Detective-Inspector Napoleon Bonaparte.

The people who live in Salvation (known to the locals as Ruination) are villainous, perverse, and unashamedly venal: there is John, who runs the local pub, Jean Flinch whose reputation at the 'Virgin Wall' is infamous and little orphan Ernie, whose giant jawbone is both a curse and a blessing. When Ernie re-invents himself as The Slapping Man, all hell breaks loose as the locals clamor to find their own salvation by giving Ernie a good slap.

Sex, sport, and steroids - an explosive mix. They called him the Black Prince. Southwestern Uni's top athlete, Clinton seemed to have it all: He was destined for sporting stardom and lucky in love - then it all went horribly wrong. Now Clinton won't rest until he's avenged his girlfriend's death. He's after the dealer who sold Angie bad steroids and nothing's going to get in his way. Can Cliff Hardy find him before he ends up on a murder charge - or dead?

What is the Lake Frome Monster? Why are the Aborigines so terrified of it? And what dreadful part did it really play in the sudden death of a former roving reporter? When Inspector Napoleon Bonaparte is called in, everything goes against him. There is even a vicious attempt on his life....

Homicide detective Harry Belltree wouldn’t usually be looking too hard at an elderly couple’s suicide pact. Especially now, when his brother-in-law, Greg, has just been stabbed to death. But it seems Greg and the old couple had ties to the same man, a bent moneylender with friends in high places - and low. Harry can’t get officially involved in Greg’s murder, but he suspects a link with two other mysterious deaths: his parents'.

Tucked away in the Southern Highlands of New South Wales is Cork Valley, inhabited by hard-drinking Irishmen. Here an Excise Officer looking for illicit whiskey 'stills' has been murdered, and it's Bony's job to find the killer. Disguised as a horse thief, the Aboriginal detective hitchhikes into the valley to meet a lawless lot....

Detective-Inspector Napoleon Bonaparte is called to the drought-stricken outback for this, his latest case. At a desolate sheep station, two men have been savagely beaten to death, and it's Bony's job to make an arrest. This isn't an easy case, since clues are scarce in this sun-baked, sand-blown country, but Bony's understanding of the bush and the people who live there – both black and white – leads him inexorably to the killer.

Detective Sergeant Harry Belltree, back on the job after a near-fatal confrontation with corrupt colleagues, has become a departmental embarrassment. The solution is a posting away from Sydney and a quiet life in Newcastle. Or maybe not so quiet.

The final audiobook in Maitland's critically acclaimed Belltree Trilogy. Harry Belltree's obsessive pursuit of justice has cost him everything - his job in homicide, his marriage and his newborn child. He has nothing left to lose, or so he thinks. Then his estranged wife disappears, leaving their baby daughter behind. The police think Jenny has murdered a man. Harry thinks she's in danger.

Someone's trying to cancel Cliff Hardy's licence, and he needs to find out why. He also needs to find out why the case of missing schoolteacher Brian Madden keeps leading him back over 50 years to the construction of the Sydney Harbour Bridge. Finding the answers takes all his contacts - police, underworld and press - and keeps Hardy moving across Sydney, asking questions, probing the past ... and finding the bodies.

Cliff Hardy is stunned to get a phone call from his ex-wife Cynthia. It has been over 20 years since she last shouted she never wanted to see him again and she was never a woman to change her mind. But that surprise is nothing to the bombshell Cynthia is about to drop. Dying of cancer, she's desperate to get in contact with the daughter she gave up for adoption - and the daughter in question, she confesses, is also Cliff's! A shocked but sceptical Cliff agrees to search for their missing daughter. But this is never going to be a straightforward investigation....