A phone message from ex-client Danny McKillop doesn’t ring any bells for Jack Irish. Life is hard enough without having to dredge up old problems: His beloved football team continues to lose, the odds on his latest plunge at the track seem far too long, and he’s still cooking for one. When Danny ...
The Cold War is long dead but the trade in deceit and lies is still running hot. In Hamburg, John Anselm is hiding from the ghosts he has left behind in foreign war zones. He spends his days working for a surveillance firm. At night he drinks too much, paranoid about the suspicions he glimpses in...
When Mac Faraday's best friend is found hanging, the assumption is suicide. But Mac is far from convinced, and he's a man who has learnt never to accept things at face value.
He sat behind a standard public-service desk, top of glass, bare except for his mobile. ‘What’s this in aid of?’ he said. He didn’t much resemble the jovial man talking to Paul Keogh at the AirLine launch, Villani said, ‘We’re from the Homicide Squad, Mr Koenig.’ ‘That’s clever? I know where you’...
Have to do better than that, won’t you? Clients on premium rates expect premium results, don’t they?’Replete after the long-awaited breakfast of soft-poached eggs with the lot at Enzio’s, I was sitting in a client’s chair in Wootton’s office, a chamber appointed like the Writing Room on the first...
She looked up from a tray of seedlings as I came down the greenhouse aisle. I’d found her easily, through her father, who still worked for the forestry department in New South Wales.‘Sandra?’‘Yes.’ She was tall, with dark, curly hair cut short, wearing green work clothes.‘I’m Jack Irish.’She took...
It was a small affair. Almost everyone George had known was dead. Many of them were dead because George had had them killed. My occasional employer and I sat in my old Studebaker Lark a little way down from the church. When the first mourners came out, mostly men in raven suits, Cyril Wootton sai...
‘Like old times,’ said Birkerts. ‘Us sitting here. Any minute Singo comes through the door.’ ‘I fucking wish,’ said Villani. He sighed, ran fingers through his hair. ‘Jesus, got to get out to see him. Guilt building up on all fronts. The things left undone.’ Cashin thought Villani looked even mor...