Showing results by narrator "David Tredinnick" in All Categories

How did Corporal Hitler's Luger from the First World War end up being the weapon that killed an IRA turncoat in Kempsey, New South Wales, in 1933? When an affluent Kempsey matron spots a young Aboriginal boy who bears an uncanny resemblance to her husband, not only does she scream for divorce, attempt to take control of the child's future and upend her comfortable life, but the whole town seems drawn into chaos.

A novel adventuring between the pre-WWI Russian enclave in Brisbane and Tsarist Russia. From the author of Schindler's Ark, another tale of oppression and the triumph of determined peoples.Artem Samsurov, a charismatic protege of Lenin and an ardent socialist, reaches sanctuary in Australia after escaping his Siberian labour camp and making a long, perilous journey via Japan.

Meet Osamah Sami: a schemer, a dreamer and a madcap antihero of spectacular proportions whose terrible life choices keep leading to cataclysmic consequences...despite his best laid plans to be a good Muslim boy. By the age of 13, Osamah had survived the Iran-Iraq war, peddled fireworks and chewing gum on the Iranian black market, proposed 'temporary marriage' not once but three times, and received countless floggings from the Piety Police....

When Annaliese Winter walks down Curtis Holland's front path, he's ill-prepared for a sixteen-year-old schoolgirl who's a confounding mixture of adult and child. After years traveling the world with his band, Butterfish, he's not used to having a neighbor at all. So when Curtis receives an invitation to dinner from Annaliese's mother, Kate, he is surprised when he not only accepts but finds himself being drawn to this remarkably unremarkable family.

On an unnamed island, in a Gothic hospital sitting in the shadow of a volcano, a wordless orphan girl works on the wards housing the insane and the incapable. When a silent, unmoving and unnerving new patient - a foreigner - arrives at the hospital, strange phenomena occur, bizarre murders take place and the lives of the patients and the island's inhabitants are thrown into turmoil. What happens between them is an extraordinary exploration of consciousness, reality and madness.

Mark Kurzem was living at Oxford when his father, Alex, showed up with a secret to tell. During World War II, young Alex was made to promise never to reveal his true identity. The Jewish boy became part of the Nazi machine that killed his own people. Alex kept this secret from even his wife and children. But his torment increased and he became determined to uncover his Jewish roots. Shunned by a Holocaust organization, he went to his son Mark for help in regaining his identity.

Victor Cavalier has received the phone call every parent dreads: his daughter is lying in a coma after a motorcycle accident and given little chance of survival. But when a mysterious scientist known as the Shaman intervenes to save his daughter's life, Victor decides he must meet this maverick genius.

Do you believe in love? Do you trust your partner? Nick Souter did, with good reason - he and Anne had something special. He didn't make a habit of going through her pockets but what's a man supposed to do when he's got a rotten cold and a wife who helps herself to his handkerchiefs? You can't blow your nose on an adulterous love-note but it certainly took Nick's mind off his sniffles. Secrets and lies can turn doubt into obsession and a loving couple into snarling adversaries. Secrets and lies can kill.

It was a blood oath between best friends. As Sergeant Brett Wood prepared for a third tour of Afghanistan, he made fellow commando Jamie Zimmermann promise to take care of his wife and financial affairs should the worst unfold. When Brett was killed two months later, it tore two worlds apart. The Promise is the extraordinary story of two mates, Jamie and Brett, each with two families – the family at home and the brotherhood that bonds military servicemen in times of war.

When Grace married Captain Leo Waterhouse in Australia in 1943, they were young, in love - and at war. Like many other young men and women, they were ready, willing and able to put the war effort first. They never seriously doubted that they would come through unscathed. But Leo never returned from a commando mission masterminded by his own hero figure, an eccentric and charismatic man who inspired total loyalty from those under his command.

It's hard to imagine this story as being part of our past, but in 1942, an 11-year-old Australian boy, Richard Manson, and his parents either side of him were shot by the Japanese for suspected spying in Rabaul in Papua New Guinea. Acclaimed Fourth Estate author and award-winning science journalist Ian Townsend has uncovered a fascinating story of World War Two, little known to most Australians.

This intimate and unflinching memoir explores Wen's struggle to survive, and confronts the belief that people don't change. Through appalling abuse and neglect, Wen finds a way to a very different kind of life, embodying resilience, healing and transformation. The story is woven through with the intriguing themes of Wen's life. With humility, understanding and beauty, she delves into the plight of a stammerer, the unbreakable bonds of twinship, and her body's need to dissociate.

Quirky and neurotic, Gordon B. Shoesmith is a 30-something jazz musician seeing his twelfth psychiatrist in as many years. He increasingly discovers that there is a conflict between his artist's idealism and the hard reality of life, fuelled by his ambitious journalist girlfriend, Jenny, and her disapproving parents. Gordon finds himself on an improvised, medicated roller-coaster ride of self-discovery....

Elizabeth posts a ‘room for rent’ notice in Trevor’s bookshop and is caught off-guard when Trevor answers the advertisement himself. She expected a young student, not a middle-aged bookseller whose marriage has fallen apart. But Trevor is attracted to Elizabeth’s house because of the empty shed in her backyard, the perfect space for him to revive the artistic career he abandoned years earlier. The face-blind, EH Holden-driving Elizabeth is a solitary and feisty book editor, and she accepts him, on probation. 

Lancelot, an orphaned kangaroo adopted by a farmer and his wife, is the constant figure across these stories. He is also disabled, after losing one of his arms in an accident. His quest is to discover his kangarooness and find love and acceptance among his fellow creatures.Lancelot is a little Joey whose mother has died. He is adopted by Bill and Emmy, the farmer and his wife, and he doesn’t even know that he is a kangaroo.

After a men's room confrontation with his new boss right-hand man, Maori cop Tito Ihaka has been sent into exile. And yet, out of the blue McGrail summons him back to Auckland. Christopher Lilywhite, the businesswoman s terminally ill husband whom Ihaka suspected was behind his wife's death, wants to see him. Lilywhite confesses that he had his wife murdered, but he dealt with the hit-man at arm's length so has no idea who he is. In quick succession Lilywhite and another potential source of information are murdered.

Catholic priests don't generally have children, but Australian legend Father Chris Riley has brought up about 60,000 – and they're some of the toughest kids around. He regularly encounters some of the most troubled children on Earth – kids who have given up or refuse to talk to others, who steal, take drugs, see themselves as irredeemable failures, hate everyone and everything, self-harm, have been abused or abuse other kids, and prostitute themselves.

Set in the haunting landscape of eastern Australia, this is a stunningly accomplished debut novel about the inescapable past: the ineffable ties of family, the wars fought by fathers and sons, and what goes unsaid. After the departure of the woman he loves, Frank drives out to a shack by the...

When top Hollywood star and bad girl Clarise Chalmers met a writer of trashy military science fiction William Moreland by chance in a bar she knew he was not her type at all. He was good looking but not of the film star standard she had come to expect and certainly not mega-successful with a top-range sports car. Anyway, she had a boyfriend—another top star and heart throb for millions of female fans. But Will made a lot of sense suggesting solutions to problems that had been plaguing her.

Frank and Leon are two men from different times, discovering that sometimes all you learn from your parents' mistakes is how to make different ones of your own. Frank is trying to escape his troubled past by running away to his family's beach shack. As he struggles to make friends with his...