The Frasco Diary

Emily Burel, a PhD, scientist and adventurer who works out of Sydney University, is head hunted by Security Agent Andreas Doratis, for Michael Westlake of the British Museum, and Marie de Becque from Le Musee du Louvre in Paris. De Becque believes she has evidence proving that a model for the Pieta was a woman from the Orient who lived with Michelangelo as his mistress. Burel, accepting the challenge to find the truth of this claim, begins her investigation at a monastery in the Swiss Alps. She is neither alone nor safe in her search though, as others from Europe, Asia and Africa follow dangerously close behind her, looking for answers, and rewards, of their own.

The el Toro Problem and Other Stories

Larry Carmody, private investigator, lives in a nighttime world of 1930s crime noir, a world of bottomless cynicism, triple standards, and scathingly black humor. There is no doing good in the world of Larry Carmody. There is only the cynicism and black humor needed to stay alive in the midst of convoluted plots and the nighttime world of crime. For some, that is. The accomplished and lucky ones. The rest perish.
In the world of Larry Carmody, you have to get the low-down. And you have to find a way out. Otherwise someone will show you the foolproof way out, by means of force-feeding you lead with an equalizer.
Larry Carmody himself says: “A case can sometimes be opened and shut in no time. It doesn’t often go down that way, but when it does, you can most often exchange the word ‘shut’ for the word ‘shot’. And I am not speaking of a shot of whisky in an instance such as this. I am using the word ‘shot’ in the sense of the main player in the case having been shot to death. Usually my client.”

The Double Edged Sword

Rhia Bryant’s partnership with Jimmy Grant is an explosive affair. Considering their union to be the key to everything her adolescent heart had desired she was mortified when her lover told her he was moving to Germany to unearth a stolen painting. Unhappy with Jimmy’s wish to seek her father’s aid in his search Rhia looks to the past to help with the future.

As the pathway to uncovering the painting grows darker, and her father’s own past comes to light, danger stalks her journey. To keep one step ahead of the challenges she faces, Rhia once more brings deception into the equation.

The twists and turns of her personal life, forged by one Hans Parker, lead her into a year of deceit, lies, and a secret that threatens her very existence.

A rollercoaster of a read that questions the fabric of life.

Can a deceiver be deceived?

When is the moral high ground destroyed?

The Devil's Sandbags

The aftermath of leading a double life; Dorothea was for many years an undercover agent for M16 infiltrating a commune of revolutionary activists linked with the Baader-Meinhof Group in the 1970s. After leaving that work which caused her great distress, she tried to lead a normal life with her family who never knew what she had done. She discovered decades later that the past events and her own actions during those years would return to haunt her. She and her fellow agents learn to find healing, recovery and hope for the future. Dorothea has a second chance at love and happiness.

That Afternoon

Michael Talbot has spent the last twenty-five years working at the tax office, where he is known ironically to his colleagues as Old Sunbeam. Behind the mask of surly efficiency, Michael is in fact a highly sensitive person who was once a charming and lively little boy of six, until the terrible day when his mother unaccountably disappeared, leaving him to the mercies of his father, Eric, a bully of a man with little sympathy for children who indulges his boisterous sense of fun at his son’s expense. Despite this profoundly unsatisfactory relationship, Michael remains attached to Eric in a dutiful slavish sort of way, continuing to meet him occasionally for lugubrious drinks. And so life might have continued indefinitely until early one morning the phone shrills with a frightening message from the local hospital, galvanising him into frenzied and panic-stricken action and launching him into an extraordinary and terrifying adventure. Michael freely admits that his description of this adventure beggars belief, but however real or unreal it may have been, it has freed him from the stranglehold of the past, so that at last he can move forward into fulfilment in a future full of promise.

Shallow Water

Private Investigator Agnes Trout once again finds herself investigating intriguing and dangerous cases. After she saves the life of an unconscious truck driver by dragging him out of his burning cab, he decides to engage her services, leading to her coming face to face with a cool, unbalanced protagonist who simply kills to resolve his problems. Agnes needs to use all of her resources to survive a violent encounter with this determined killer.
At the same time, through the designs of a cunning schemer, she emerges as the central suspect in the possible kidnapping and murder of the wife of a client. She mounts her own investigation, which leads her to a surprising and compelling resolution.

Shadows of the Missing

Are you a ‘sneaker’ – meaning, do you immediately flip to the back page, sneak a peek and surreptitiously read the ending before you read the whole story? Just a suggestion – don’t do it! Don’t rob yourself of the mystery, suspense and surprises that tumble around in the pages of this book. This second book of the trilogy, Shadows of the Missing (Whatever Happened to Lloyd?), is certainly worth the wait and promises to keep you hooked from beginning to end, the same way that Not Another Word! reeled you in and kept you guessing. At long last, dear readers, you are going to find out what happened to Lloyd!

Settlement

Former undercover police officer Justin Kell has settled into life as a financial journalist in the City of London. When he comes across a suspicious case of accidental death, his investigation leads him to Henry Gray, an unfulfilled soul whose life is dramatically changed by a series of coincidental events. Driven by his desire to establish the truth, Kell finds himself thrust into the world of organised crime whose cynical and ruthless exploitation of the lives of innocent people reawakens his nightmares from his time in the force.

Seasons of Freedom

Robert Allen ‘Bubba’ Armentrout is an adventurous youngster, experiencing everything life has to offer in the 1960s’ rural community of Freedom, Virginia. His life is rich with loyal companions, exploits, carefree days and a burgeoning sexual awareness.

This tranquil normality crumbles when what begins as an innocent childhood predicament of Bubba’s own making transforms into his witnessing of a salacious encounter between two of Freedom’s most revered citizens. A chain of events that results in multiple homicides exposes him to the dark underbelly of his hometown and shatters his sense of safety and serenity in Freedom.

Only Bubba knows the truth behind these murders, and that truth is deadly. Seasons of Freedom is a coming-of-age mystery set in a politically fragile rural Southern community in the culturally volatile 1960s.

Rippleswade Hall

Taking the form of a legal witness statement in a civil action in the High Court and an expert report from a psychologist, Rippleswade Hall is the story of Barrington Whibley, who is appointed to investigate a suspicious fire at a grand family house. Whibley makes three separate visits to Rippleswade Hall, each recounted in detail in the witness statement. His last visit is to attend a special and lavish dinner on the summer solstice, hosted by Natalie Trelewyn-Digby, the heiress and sole occupant of Rippleswade Hall. Whibley begins to fall in love with both her and the hall. Some very strange events occur at the dinner party and Whibley becomes obsessed to know whether his recollections were real, drug-induced or a psychotic episode. An investigation into love and madness – Remains of the Day meets Twin Peaks.

Raising the Dead

Emeline Upswatch, a naive 20-year-old bride, is grief-stricken after the deaths of both of her beloved parents. Now, Emeline believes she has made a grave error in moving with her husband, Randy, from her California Delta childhood home to unknown Charles Town, Virginia. She questions her marriage and herself. Marooned in grief in an unfamiliar world and intimidated by her mother-in-law, Emeline is rescued by the appearance of a mysterious older woman, Felicity, who becomes her dearest friend, mentor, and “other mother” with whom she can share her innermost feelings. Unlike Emeline, Felicity divulges nothing about her history or personal life. When Felicity disappears as mysteriously as she arrived, Emeline is determined to unearth her older friend’s whereabouts. What she ultimately discovers forces her to question her sanity, world, memories, and newfound joy.

In her second book, Jayne Lisbeth cements her reputation as a “sensitive, entertaining and deeply moving writer.” In Raising the Dead her quirky, mysterious, home-spun and loveable characters keep the reader engaged and entertained from the first page to the last.

Early reviews praise Raising the Dead as “a deep and emotional account of Emeline’s introspective journey with a wholesome, spiritual, supernatural angle ... Inspirational ... A poignant plot, with a well-structured, assured writing style, sure to appeal to a wide audience.”

Prunes

Old spies don’t retire, they just sit on the sidelines until needed. This is what Mr Eggington and Violet believed until they uncovered a plot that would reshape the financial world. Mr Eggington was counting toilet rolls and paperclips until he reached retirement, and his best former operative, Violet, had ended up as a tea lady.

Events unfold with surprising speed after she tries to buy a packet of biscuits to go home with Mr Eggington’s tea. She is set up and ‘roofied’ ending up in an old person’s home after this dastardly attack and Mr Eggington is ridiculed when he tried to bring his fears to the attention of his boss.

Rallying the most unlikely people they engineer a plot to save the country. Hidden depths are uncovered in their new friends and they pool all their skills to overthrow the evil megalomaniac, after trying to break all the codes and riddles of course!