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A sociopath managing an aged care facility: What could go wrong?

Precocious and pretty Maxine Gilbert is a clever and talented nine-year-old, adored by a doting father. She is also cruel, sadistic and without remorse, delighting in manipulating others and torturing small animals. When her mother is diagnosed with Motor Neurone Disease, Maxine is disgusted, not just by her mother’s disability, but by the inconvenience it brings. Watching a nurse care for her mother, Maxine learns that nurses can hurt or heal. Maxine decides to be a nurse when she grows up.

Forty years on, after countless complaints against her nursing in various clinical care settings, Maxine scams a job as Managing Director of an aged care facility, Treetops, and the residents are in for a rough time.

Under Maxine’s management, physical and medical restraint of residents is encouraged, and neglect, poor hygiene, and restrictions of residents’ liberty, nourishment and medical support are exhorted. Frightened, depressed, and malnourished residents are left isolated, locked away, and laying in their own waste. They develop excruciating infections, suffer illness, and even die. Maxine faces rising antagonism from Treetops’ residents, and their friends and family. 

A new carer at Treetops, Seleena, who recently escaped an abusive marriage, cannot stay silent. Along with warning residents, and others, Seleena writes a letter of complaint. After finding a suspicious lump in her breast, could Maxine, who always hated illness and vulnerability in others, finally learn compassion? Or will she continue her ruthless ways?

On One Normal Night

When life takes a cruel turn and everything you knew becomes the unknown.

Macy Reynolds was an ordinary girl with an ordinary life, until one day that life was shattered by a cruel attack on her.

People’s lives spiral out of control as a number of suspects are interviewed and secrets and lies are unravelled.

But will Macy’s attacker ever be exposed?

Operation Take Down

Shawnna, a veteran Navy Seal determined young lady who stops at nothing to complete her mission of capturing a notorious terrorist for a 10-million-dollar reward. Teaming up with Shawnna are two of her best friends, Doretha Hollaway along with Evelyn Staford join in this mission. First, they must learn the Muslim religion before going abroad. Infiltrating Iraq becomes a daunting task while trying to blend in without being caught. Having prior tactical skills Shawnna has taught her friends how to defend themselves. Things do not appear as Evelyn had thought as she has a change of heart during the mission. Doretha continues to focus on getting back home alive. High in the mountains Shawnna, Doretha and Evelyn must try to survive in order to find out Maurad’s next move. Terrorist Maraud Yogasolfa sets his plan in motion with his destructive evil ways, wanting to attack and destroy America, not knowing he is up for a battle because someone must live, and someone must die.

Orvil: Trial and Error

Orvil sits alone in a diner to celebrate his 21^st birthday. He feels lonely and abandoned...his new girlfriend just dumped him and his mother recently died. He has no idea who his father is. He hates his first name, lives in a rundown trailer, had sacrificed his studies at City College to care for his ailing parent, and drives trucks just to scrape by. Totally lost since his mother’s death, his free time revolves around eating junk food and chugging beers in front of the tube. As he’s feeling sorry for himself, he perceives a gunman entering the diner and firing his AR-15 at everyone in sight. This experience forever changes Orvil’s life. Powerful and insightful, humourous and tragic, through trial and error, Orvil Smith’s story takes us on a tour of modern America from the rural to the urban, from the poor to the rich, and from the righteous to the corrupt.

Parallax

Fatal accidents are rarely caused by a single mistake but are often the result of a series of errors. A chain of poor decisions leaves Ian White – golf professional and happily married father of two teenage daughters – with a hellish choice. Should he report the death of Katerina Wysklow, a hitchhiker whom he accidentally kills while having sex with her? If his shame becomes public, it will destroy his family. If he conceals the truth, he must find a way to deal with the horror and his guilt.

In parallel to White’s unravelling, the police investigation of Katerina’s disappearance uncovers sex videos of Katerina with different men and unexplained cash deposits into her bank account. The mounting evidence points to her boyfriend’s father – a close friend of White’s – and Katerina’s last known contact on the day she vanished. Will the wrong man be charged? Will White be exposed? Will his conscience intervene? Or will the reckoning come from another direction entirely? 

Particular Moments in a Night Time

As far as nightmares go, this one was with me for many years. Coming back from time to time to haunt my nights. Getting into the dark side of my conscious thought, twisting, turning. Then you give the dog a bone and try to remove it from him with force. A fun trip they said. A walk in the park. A couple of weeks work utilise your special talents. You’ll be back home, back to your own way of life. They say everyone has a dark side that needs that special person to extract from you the energy to ignite it. Well, these buggers did just that…

A thriller that will leave you shaking.

Pass the Parcel

It’s 2008 and the Global Financial Crisis is upon the World … The Establishment turns a blind eye as banks shuffle toxic financial packages around the system to unsuspecting victims…

A hedge fund manager has just placed the biggest bet of his investment career. Market manipulation is suspected, but can he discover who is trying to destroy him before it’s too late?

A hard-working Mexican couple are fighting foreclosure to save their house in San Francisco.

In London, a banker discovers his employer is about to embezzle assets from his brother’s property business.

And, a rising star of British politics is being blackmailed by an ex-professional footballer. When the former player is murdered as well, the politician and his wife become key suspects.

Pass the Parcel is a financial thriller that explores the human psychology around financial decisions and how the lives of a group of people were changed beyond recognition by the financial crash.

Passcodes to Peril

Len Gorski’s new assignment has taken him to Sydney’s heartland to coach the UNSW football team in the State League. On the eve of the grand final, he is embroiled in the aftermath of theft of world-first technology from the team captain, a post-graduate research student.

The search to recover a prototype device and learn the identity of the thieves leads to violence and life-changing adventures for the team captain, his girlfriend, and her former high school sports teacher. Survival skills learned in Len’s earlier life are stretched.

Payback

In the aftermath of the Horizon Life Settlement Fund scandal, Justin Kell is waiting for the trials of the Lebanese organised crime syndicate to end and for justice to be served. When unexpected events disrupt the proceedings, Kell’s world is turned upside down as he returns to face some old adversaries.

Recently established as a private investigator, his refusal to take on the case of a missing person leads to events from his past returning to haunt him, culminating in a race against time as he tries to stop a serial killer with a taste for blood.

As the two cases converge into a dramatic finale, Kell is faced with some life-changing choices.

Peter

Peter is a special boy with an all-consuming passion for aviation, and it is his dream to fly as a career. We follow his journey from school and his exam results through starting work, and eventually obtaining a place as a pilot cadet with an international airline. We share the highs and lows of his training, of being away from his close family for the first time, and the efforts of his elder brother to thwart his chances.

Picture of Death

A young child is born into a privileged background, but finds himself distanced from others as he grows into adulthood.

His grandfather and his love of art is his only hold on sanity. When that is taken away from him, he is physiologically changed forever and obsessed with producing his macabre masterpiece, to the detriment of those around him.

Pieces of Eight

Eight very different women, each with a secret, are closeted together in strange and unexpected circumstances. As time goes by, tongues are loosened and one by one they confess their various sins. Will tensions rise or can they bond in adversity?