Showing results by narrator "Peter Hosking" in All Categories

Two rural families flee to the city and find themselves sharing a great, breathing, shuddering joint called Cloudstreet, where they begin their lives from scratch. For 20 years they roister and rankle, laugh and curse until the roof over their heads becomes a home for their hearts.

Joe Cashin was different once. He moved easily then; was surer and less thoughtful. But there are consequences when you’ve come so close to dying. For Cashin, they included a posting away from the world of Homicide to the quiet place on the coast where he grew up. Now all he has to do is play the country cop and walk the dogs. And sometimes think about how he was before. But then prominent local Charles Bourgoyne is bashed and left for dead....

It's September 1957, two days before the VFL grand final, and Detective Sergeant Charlie Berlin, former bomber pilot and ex-POW, finally has some time off. But there's no rest for Charlie, a decent but damaged man still troubled by his wartime experiences. A recently widowed friend asks a favour and he's dropped into something a hell of a lot bigger than he bargained for when he discovers a Melbourne funeral parlour has been burying bodies with parts missing.

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.

The police never notice the small detail in the background of a police photograph of an abandoned car. A detail that tells Detective Inspector Napoleon Bonaparte plainly that the mysterious disappearance of Luke Marks near Windee Station is anything but accidental. Why had Luke Marks driven specially out to Windee? Had he been murdered or had he, as the local police believed, wandered away from his car and been overwhelmed in a dust-storm? Bony feels the answers lie somewhere in the sands of Windee.

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....

Jack Anderson was a big man with a foul temper, a sadist and a drunk. Five months after his horse appeared riderless, no trace of the man has surfaced and no one seems to care. But Bony is determined to follow the cold trail and smoke out some answers.

An entertaining collection of insider yarns by an Aussie Test cricket legend. 'In the Test arena, Dennis Lillee was never beaten. West Indian champion Viv Richards had taken the sword to all the international bowlers of his era. But when he came up against Lillee, it was a heavyweight fight between unrelenting combatants. Their contests were always take-no-prisoners affairs.'

In an isolated hut not far from the sleepy country town of Merino, stockman George Kendall is found dead and it looks very much like murder. Six weeks later, when the murderer is still at large, another stockman turns up in the township and, as a first move, provokes the local sergeant to lock him up. This particular stockman is Detective-Inspector Napolean Bonaparte, and there's method in his seeming madness.

Detective-Inspector Napoleon Bonaparte leaves his familiar outback environment for Melbourne and a nearby mountain resort on special assignment for Military Intelligence. Although out of his element among city people, Bony displays his characteristic skills to interpret some puzzling clues and catch a murderer - providing the ingredients for another fascinating Arthur Upfield mystery.

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.

Martin Carter is having a crook day. His home life's a misery, he's been retrenched by the bank, and everyone's forgotten his birthday. But a million-dollar payroll, a pistol, and a split-second decision change everything. Hurtling north on a motorcycle with the intriguing Faith, Martin encounters a mysterious hit-man, a new-age bike gang, a reclusive media mogul, and the booby-trapped mountain hideout of an old schoolmate.

In an incredible 25-year career as a homicide detective, Ron Iddles' conviction rate was 99 percent. Yet that only partly explains why Iddles is known to cops and crims alike as 'The Great Man'. Tough, inventive and incorruptible, stoic in the face of senseless horror yet unafraid to shed tears for a victim, Ron has applied his country cunning and city savvy to over 320 homicide cases - some of them the most infamous, compelling and controversial crimes in the nation's history. To the victims of crime, Ron is both a shoulder to cry on and an avenging angel.

A cat ... a ping-pong ball ... a drunken gardener ... With these slight clues to go on Detective-Inspector Bonaparte investigates the mysterious death of famous author, Mervyn Blake, who dies an agonizing death late one night in his writing room. But how did he die? No one knows. No one that is until Bony's acute observation of human nature uncovers the murderer - and the method used to kill Blake.

All Alby wants is a decent coffee and a day off. But there's a hijacked tanker with a deadly cargo in Sydney Harbor, and bullets are flying on board a U.S. Navy cruiser. Three sailors are dead and a Seahawk chopper is missing.

Alby's partner Harry is gunned down in a Double Bay coffee shop. By lunchtime Alby realizes someone wants him dead - and they want him dead now. All Alby wants is some pasta, a good bottle of wine and to know more about the mysterious Grace Goodluck. But he also has to figure out who shot Harry and who wants him dead. Unfortunately for Alby, the answer lies over the razor wire and past mines protecting a top-secret US military facility deep in the central Australian desert. Now that can really ruin your day.

Mr. Jelly's Business is one of the finest of Arthur Upfield's many distinguished stories about the career of Detective Inspector Napoleon ("Bony") Bonaparte. It takes Bony to the West Australian town of Burracoppin to investigate the disappearance of George Loftus, whose car was found wrecked near the longest fence in the world, the 1,500 mile Rabbit Fence. He meets Loftus's wife, who is anything but grief-stricken at her husband's disappearance; Loftus's hired man, singularly reticent about his own past history; and many of Burracoppin's numerous gossips.

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.

Peter Carey's brilliant, hilarious, Booker Prize-short-listed Illywhacker is the novel that first brought him to international attention. Herbert Badgery is vagabond and charlatan, aviator and car salesman, seducer and patriarch. He might very well be the embodiment of Australia's national character, especially in its fondness for tall stories and questionable history.

The Birdsville Track is one of the best-known - and loneliest – tracks in Australia, and for 20 years Tom Kruse was the mailman, battling the searing heat, floods, and mechanical breakdowns. He made the run every fortnight, and was a lifeline to the isolated settlements and stations along the way, delivering everything from letters to essential supplies. The Track is still just that - a track through the desert and sandhills. Tom began in the days before reliable vehicles, good communication, and air access in case of emergency. He made running repairs of his truck, he loaded and unloaded tons of stores to ferry his cargo across flooded creeks.