Works in progress

Dark

Athol is friendly with Nora who used to be a nurse and nursed his mother in ICU. Now she’s a detective sergeant. He is also friendly with DC Pete Cosgrove. Which is good, he needs friends after his workshop is broken into and he is later attacked. Some antique cupboards in his possession hold secrets which are dangerous.

Nora is also having problems, her boss DI Froome is becoming more erratic and more antagonistic. He has closed down the cases involving Athol and has his own theories about these events but in the meantime people are beginning to disappear. Nora is determined to stay calm and professional despite the provocations.

Athol is on constant alert, expecting the return of the men who attacked him. But he is looking in the wrong direction, the danger that is out there in the dark is not what he is expecting at all. Pete is investigating but will he be in time?

(Set contemporaneously in Hobart, it gives a starring role to the Hobart tip, turns the Waverley Flora Park into a place of evil, and walks the light-industrial streets of Moonah).

The Beneficiary

When May meets Alfie they are mismatched pair, she’s a social worker and he’s an older (and very rich) industrialist. But happiness happens along where you least expect it and May is very happy with Alfie.

Then Alfie is murdered and for reasons that May can’t work out, she is also in danger. She is on the run with her bodyguard and none of her friends know where she is. Her sister has decided that May is dead and that all of the money May inherited from Alfie is now hers as the next of kin.

Money is not necessarily the root of all evil, but when foreign governments are involved it can get messy. And when parts of your own government are involved, messier still. But when May works out what’s going on, they had all better seek cover!

(Set in the 1980s, when the first draft was written!)

Viva

In 1970 three men and a teenage boy are travelling in a Vauxhall Viva down through France and Spain to a religious conference in Salamanca. They consist of Martin, a middle-aged Anglican Minister and his son Jack, plus Gregory, a youngish Benedictine monk and Bob, a youngish solicitor and they are staying mainly at Benedictine monasteries en route – monastery hopping as someone calls it.

During the conference, Martin’s wife rings to say that their daughter (a very difficult 13-year-old) has disappeared. As a result of this, Martin comes gradually to question where his life is going, his Christian faith and his marriage.

(This is still a first draft and at the moment is a novella).