Potential

Thirty-year-old single dad, David Lucas, has taken up running as a therapeutic release from watching his wife die of cancer. When he sets out on his regular morning run to tackle the worst fog the Fens have experienced for many years, he is unaware that his life is to change in a way he could never have imagined. And when tragedy strikes, a chance encounter with ex-Olympic runner and coach, Charlie Greaves, presents him with the opportunity of a lifetime - a possible place in the 2012 Olympic team. But can he and will he take it? At home, his life has its problems with his live-in girlfriend and 11-year-old son at loggerheads. In the days and months leading up to the big day, and in the midst of receiving some devastating news, will he turn his back on his dream and be the father and partner his family needs? Relive again the halcyon days of that golden summer of 2012 in this exciting and compelling novel, and discover if one man, with one goal, has what it takes to go for gold.

Pretty Dead Ordinary

Nearly two years after a serial killer let loose with havoc in Brumby Flat, intrigue, unexpressed desires and murder ride back into town.

A long-awaited wedding celebration turns sinister when a bridesmaid nearly drowns in the local dam. Once again, Senior Detective Phillip Duncan is drawn into the initial investigations, but quickly becomes the prime suspect. Gradually the small South Australian town starts to believe he fits the profile of their new deadly threat.

Some familiar characters return from The Big Dead Dry. Raquel Willaston is still living with the charismatic silo painter Phil Proctor and Anabella Williams has returned after serving time in a correctional centre for the accidental death of the local Mayor. Raquel’s son Steve is now the local rookie cop, quickly learning how to cope with the evil circumstances unfolding around him. Then there are the new folks in town, the crafty Tanaka family with their rebellious beautiful daughter ‘Yankee’ who Steve becomes obsessed with.

Pretty Dead Ordinary sums up the order of things to come. Detective Duncan is forced to work harder than ever to prove his own innocence and hopefully bring the real killer to justice.

Pretty Eyes

After PI Agnes Trout repels a vicious attack by an intruder in her New York City apartment, she discovers that other women have been attacked by the same perpetrator. Even though the attacker is known, none of the women attempt to bring him to justice. Agnes’s own quest uncovers a brutal murder and brings her into contact with the glacial matriarch of a wealthy family, an enigmatic, charming fixer and a cold-blooded killer. At the same time, she is asked by a close friend to look into the checkered life of the friend’s secretive and menacing husband.

Determined attempts on her life and malicious threats will not slow Agnes down as, along with help from unexpected quarters, she goes after a killer and a scheming husband.

Pretty Flowers In the Snow

Enter a world of dream and reality.  Where the afterlife and our world meet. Where the beginning is the end and the end is the beginning. Where death, horror, the surreal, reality and pain meet. Gothic and surreal overtones are just some of the ideas that permeate this collection of poems.  
Pretty Flowers in the Snow is the second book of the ‘Poppy’ trilogy, revealing that the world Lilith entered is full of flowers, smothered by snow. The flowers are a reflection of her and the torment she is in.

Prince of Wales Lane, SC3

When a young French student had parked his old, dented 2CV, in front of an estate agency in a small seaside town on the East coast of England, he had an absent-minded look at the properties on offer in the window. When he realised how ridiculously low the asking price of a grand palatial house was, he walked in, asked to view the house, and bought it on an impulse, to the shocked horror of his mother and friends. Little could he guess that he was hopping into a trap that would cause him to be followed by the police in several countries, and even offer him an opportunity to discover what it was like to be remanded in custody, all that without ever realising what he was wanted for. Meanwhile, he had made friends for life in the town, and would never be able to stay very long away from his family, his friends, his lovely house, his job a couple of miles down the road, or the local garden fête.

Princess Ice Cream and Other Verses from the 1970s

“Majestic, stately, self-possessed,
A fashion plate divinely dressed.
Miniskirts and summer blouses,
Knee-length boots and winter trousers.
Tiaras, diamonds, royal crowns,
Pyjamas, swimsuits, evening gowns.
Cotton, satin, wool, or lace,
She wears them all with equal grace.”
From the poem “Princess Ice Cream”

Welcome to Michael McAllen’s collection of witty, opinionated and technically assured poetry written during that strange decade, the 1970s. It includes poems about love lost, gained or never-quite-achieved, Hollywood and the British theatre scene, along with vers d’occasion, pop song parodies, political diatribes from both sides of the Atlantic, and portraits – not always flattering – of various celebrities of the time.

Princetown and the Conscientious Objectors of WW1

Over 16,000 men refused to fight in WW1 and became known as Conscientious Objectors.

Their initial incarceration in prison was deemed unsuitable for many and they were then sent to work centres to be engaged on work of national importance.

One such work centre was in the village of Princetown, Devon, home of the notorious Dartmoor Prison.

This book explores its change of purpose to that of work centre and the daily life, type of work and health of those COs held there. It also looks at the impact of their arrival on the local community and the attitudes of the village residents towards them.

Prior Knowledge

Summer of 1966. The Vietnam war is reaching its height, and Sonny has just enlisted in the United States Marine Corps. On his way home from the recruiting office he meets Joe, a 15-year-old from New York City. The two teenagers form a strong bond and spend every day in each other’s company until Sonny leaves for Vietnam.

Years later, Hendricks is on a flight home from the war. A chance encounter with a fellow veteran leads him to upstate New York and a career in the New York State Police. But Hendricks is suffering partial memory loss due to trauma he suffered in the war. He needs to build a new life for himself, which he does successfully, until one day he finds himself in a situation that triggers emotions he cannot explain or control.

Is Hendricks regaining his lost memories? And what is the significance of Sonny and Joe’s friendship all those years earlier? Hendricks’s journey is painful. Will it lead him to discover what has eluded him for so long?

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!

Pseudo Poetry

A collection of thoughts I was unable to articulate. From the happy to the grim. From the abstract to the clear-cut.
Art without words is just expression. Words without art are just information.
Disclaimer: you will not find this book informative.

Psychopath in Town!

Skeletal remains are found under the town’s sports ground goalpost. Young Wallis Brown, who is the daughter of a police sergeant now deceased, meets Sergeant Sam Watson. He tells Wallis of a psychopath in town. Her long-time friend Cherie Winters is bashed by her husband Neil Winters, who blames Wallis for his job loss and marriage break-down. Wallis discovers a man’s body: Sam says “Stay home at night!” Police hunt to arrest Neil for murder. Wallis, now fearful for her life, runs the short way home through the dimly lit laneway. A man wearing a cap is running after her with a knife! She screams and then falls into oblivion.

Puffin Jack

Puffin Jack is a United Nations peacekeeper in Cambodia in 1993. In a country ravaged by civil war and recovering from the horrific consequences of genocide and displacement at the hands of the Khmer Rouge, Puffin Jack finds an opportunity to prove to the world that he is a hero.

Puffin Jack is an Australian soldier, a peacekeeper on posting to Cambodia as part of the United Nations Transit Authority Cambodia. An idealistic dreamer living on the fringes of society, he embraces the barbed nickname given to him by his peers. He finds himself deployed to a remote one-man retransmission station deep in the rainforest of the Cardamom Mountains as part of the UN communications network.

Here he services and monitors a bank of VHF radios with the only other camp inhabitant for the company, a 17-year-old Khmer boy named Horrie by the previous UN resident. A lonely posting, Puffin Jack begins to entertain fantasies of a secret mission he believes has been tacitly authorised by his superiors to rid the region of Khmer Rouge influence.

In defiance of the United Nations Charter and contrary to any orders issued, Puffin Jack, with the hapless Horrie in tow, commences his quixotic and clandestine forays into the rainforest in search of the Khmer Rouge.