A house perched impossibly on a cliff overlooking the stunning, iconic Bluebird Beach. Prime real estate, yet somehow not real estate at all, The Lodge is, like those who live in it, falling apart.Gordon Grimes has become the accidental keeper of this last relic of an endangered world. He lives in The Lodge with his wife Kelly who is trying to leave him, their son Ben who will do anything to save him, his goddaughter Lou who is hiding from her own troubles, and Leonie, the family matriarch who has trapped them here for their own good.But Gordon has no money and is running out of time to conserve his homeland. His love for this way of life will drive him, and everyone around him, to increasingly desperate risks. In the end, what will it cost them to hang onto their past?Acclaimed writer Malcolm Knox has written a classic Australian novel about the myths that come to define families and communities, and the lies that uphold them. It's about a certain kind of Australia...

A tour de force set in 1938 Stalin Soviet Union, this chilling black comedy it is at once a satire and a thriller, a survivor's tale in which a father has to walk a tightrope every day to save his family from a monster and a monstrous society.'Bleak, intelligent and fearsomely well-researched—I kept telling myself I shouldn't laugh, but couldn't help it.' –Michael RobothamEven the worst person has a best friend.A chilling black comedy, The First Friend imagines a gangster mob in charge of a global superpower.The Soviet Union 1938: Lavrentiy Beria, 'The Boss' of the Georgian republic, nervously prepares a Black Sea resort for a visit from 'The Boss of Bosses', his fellow Georgian Josef Stalin. Under escalating pressure from enemies and allies alike, never certain who he can trust, Beria slowly but surely descends into dark murderous paranoia.By his side is his driver and right-hand man, Vasil Murtov, Beria's closest friend since...

Daring, dazzling, funny and heartbreaking, this is a story about fame and ambition, surfing and pine-lime Splices ... a superbly written and ambitious novel by one of Australia's rising stars. The Life will simply blow you away.He looked into the Pacific and the Pacific looked back into him.The Life tells the story of former-world-champion Australian surfer, Dennis Keith, from inside the very heart of the fame and madness that is 'The Life'.Now bloated and paranoid, former Australian surfing legend Dennis Keith is holed up in his mother's retirement village, shuffling to the shop for a Pine-Lime Splice every day, barely existing behind his aviator sunnies and crazy OCD rules, and trying not to think about the waves he'd made his own and the breaks he once ruled like a god. Years before he'd been robbed of the world title that had his name on it - and then drugs, his brother, and the disappearance and murder of his girlfriend and had done the rest....

An investigation into the escalating Ice crisis in Australia.I don't know in the time I've been a policeman, which is 41 years, of a greater scourge on the community. The physical and mental manifestations of ice are absolutely horrific. It has the potential to destroy generations.' Former NSW Police Commissioner Ken MoroneyAn act of violence while on crystal meth seems to burst boundaries; the perpetrator keeps on hitting and hitting, not knowing why, just going on beyond any purpose or restraint, repeating the action as mindlessly as playing cards or popping Sudafeds out of blister packs.'From ScatteredCrystal methamphetamine. Crystal meth. Crystal. Ice. A drug that came out of nowhere and instantly turned things upside down: for users, their families, police, healthcare workers and victims of the random, hyper-violent crimes that are the mark of ice. Nearly 1 in 10 Australians have tried ice.Scattered is the word coined by some users to describe...