After the exploits dealing with police corruption, (see "You Don't Say" in the Downs Crime Mystery series) Detective Inspector "Sarge" Downs from Cairns was looking for a break. However, while on a holiday in Hong Kong with his partner Sarah, he finds himself in trouble. He had decided to accompany his partner Sarah, who, as a lecturer at James Cook University in marine biology and toxicology had been invited to be a guest speaker at a world wide seminar. Sarge unwittingly becomes involved...

The year is 1937 and just after the first semester/Christmas break, a fight between two boarding final year law students in Balliol College, Oxford University has come to the attention of the master, and the head of law faculty at the college. It was reported by the porter and all the known qualities of one student seems to run counter the evidence of the other. One student remains uncommunicative. It is at a time when Britain is reeling from the sudden abdication of King Edward the VIII a...

Retired Detective Chief Inspector "Sarge" Downs is contemplating how boring his life has become when he is disturbed by flashing lights of the Cairns police. A friend of over thirty years is delivered on his doorstep. George "Willow" Williams formerly of Coober Pedy is now the South Australian Police Commissioner and he needs some assistance.Someone is undermining efforts to recruit more police officers in South Australia. Willow has no idea who and why, but would like an independe...

Religions across the planet called Earth have got it all wrong. There is no heaven, hell, nor even purgatory. People do not get reborn in a way that is understood. Each planet in the universe is merely a training ground, a stepping stone in a journey. All "juvenile" organic beings that exist on planets across the universe eventually die. When they do they become tiny spheroids, free to zoom across the vastness of space and time to continue developing their minds. Only a very small but very...

While on a holiday Detective Inspector "Sarge" Downs, his partner Sarah, their daughter Katie and Sarge's Uncle Ray accidentally come across a drug trafficking business that has links back to Cairns where Sarge is in charge of the Criminal Investigation Branch. Unwittingly caught up in the delivery of drugs around New Zealand, they continue their journey and seek help from the New Zealand police and the New Zealand Security Intelligence Service who also become involved. As they explore man...

What happens when our physical form reaches its use-by-date? Is there a purpose to our existence? Do our memories live on after our body dies? Is there a heaven and can all creatures on all planets enter?As a Spheroid, I live on, but just as a tiny translucent object destined to continue searching the universe forever for answers to its mysteries and to life itself. Immortality sucks, but then so do black holes. What are they? Where do they lead? What lies in wait for the unwary dr...

A young boy, about to leave the comfort and security of primary school and venture into the teenage world of secondary school, has a very different summer school holiday. Living in the poorest part of a small country town, his family is doing it tough, although he knows no different as that has been the way it has been for all his twelve years on the planet. With his father away from home for long periods, he has had to be the man of the house quite often. The events of the summer showed h...

A twenty-year-old case of murder in Cairns gets revisited by retired Chief Superintendent (CIB), "Sarge" Downs after he sees the person he helped convict of that murder walking the streets of Cairns in far north Queensland, Australia. The man had served his time, but ever curious, Sarge follows him. He felt that there was always something wrong about the investigation, the trial, the plea and the sentence. The alleged murderer had pleaded guilty despite privately saying to Sarge that he be...

Coral Voyager, a large cruise ship, is confronted by a storm just of the north Queensland coast. It finally runs aground just south of Cairns. A massive rescue effort gets underway and all passengers are safely taken by a flotilla of small boats to Cairns. Due to the brilliant seamanship of its captain, the Coral Voyager sustains very little damage except for its steering. Two ocean going tugs arrive from Townsville and the ship is refloated. As it heads out to sea under tow, two crewmen a...

In medieval times there were still creatures that we now called mythical. A young gorgon, handmaiden to the goddess Athena has been exiled from Mt Olympus. She travels through central Europe and creates her own army of dwarves and centaurs who have all sorts of adventures and battles before taking on the beasts from The Pyrneth, a place where the molten core of the Earth is open to the surface. Hellhounds, orcs, gargoyles and winged imps among others are released into the outside world and...

Dominated by a federal government, in a three-tier system of government, Australian politics is based on a constitution written in the 1890's that is extremely difficult to change via referendums. It is a Westminster system of government that has two separate chambers that are dominated by two major parties whose ideologies differ and both the sides are very combative to the extent that agreement on issues except politician wage increase, are hard won battles. If one side thinks of an idea...

Political journalist, Harry Constance receives some information from an ex fellow Oxford scholar, now UK MP, Martin King. The information could be enough to bring down the UK government if true. However, all they have is a name, an event and a date. To find out more they enlist the aid of a security expert, a businessman and a retired civil servant. As more is uncovered, they realise the precarious position they are in and the ease that they could be dealt with. Dead ends, false trails and...