A forgotten fragment of Australia's past inspires a powerful new novel ...It is 1899, and one of the fiercest storms in history is brewing - a hurricane named Mahina. to a remote part of the Queensland coast come the hundreds of sails of the northern pearling fleets, and a native policeman trying to solve a murder. Nearly two thousand men, women and children are gathering around Cape Melville, right in the path of the storm that is about to cause Australia's deadliest natural disast...

It's hard to imagine this story as being part of our past, but in 1942, an 11-year-old Australian boy, Richard Manson, and his parents either side of him, were shot by the Japanese for suspected spying in Rabaul in Papua New Guinea. Acclaimed Fourth Estate author and award-winning science journalist Ian Townsend has uncovered a fascinating story of WWII, little known to most Australians. Centring on the hotspot (in every sense) that was Rabaul in WWII, his account is an intriguing narrativ...

Shortlisted for the National Year of Reading 2012 AwardJanuary 1900, and Australia's tropical north just got a little hotter. An outbreak of plague is suspected, and the Queensland Government sends Dr Alfred Jefferis turner - small, refined and immaculately dressed - to assess the situation. turner, armed with a microscope, a butterfly net and his lovelorn yet devout colleague, Dr Linford Row, is met with incredulity, not least by local councillors who insist it's only typhoid. Fift...

In Vietnam, the III Marine Amphibious Force used Combined Action Platoons (CAPs) as one part of its operational level counterinsurgency campaign. These platoons provided security assistance to the South Vietnamese Popular Forces and civic action to the village based population. To measure the operational effectiveness and the current relevancy of this specific type of combined action their activities are evaluated against current Army counterinsurgency doctrine. This monograph demonstrates...

Over the last few decades there has been growing recognition of the importance of a peaceful and stable South China Sea for Indo-Pacific security and development, a recognition that has been underlain, paradoxically, by the increasingly precarious situation in this body of water that straddles critical shipping lanes from the Indian to the Pacific Ocean. This book informs its readership of the most recent developments in the South China Sea with insightful and prescient analyses from both ...

July 1852. It had been six weeks since the 932 passengers and sixty-man crew aboard the clipper Marco Polo had left England bound for Melbourne. They had just crossed the northern latitude of the Roaring Forties, some 350 nautical miles south of the Cape of Good Hope. Suddenly a fearsome Southern Ocean storm charged in from beyond the western horizon and locked Marco Polo in its jaws. In a matter of hours, the moderate seas turned to mountainous breaking combers, accompanied by a howling a...

In the winter of 1912 on the wild West Coast of Tasmania, Wolfftown's most notorious heiress and murderess, Sasha Torte, tells the tale of her own spectacular downfall. Forsaken by her parents and raised by criminals and reprobates, Sasha becomes a world-famous pastry chef at the tender age of 17. Entanglement with the disreputable Dasher brothers leads to love, but also to a dangerous addiction. Behind bars in Wolfftown's jail, Sasha sips premium champagne as she recalls a life of seducti...

A young New Yorker grieving his mother's death is pulled into a gritty underworld of art and wealth in this “extraordinary” and beloved novel that "connects with the heart as well as the mind" (Stephen King, New York Times Book Review), named a New York Times Best Book of the 21st Century.Theo Decker, a 13-year-old New Yorker, miraculously survives an accident that kills his mother. Abandoned by his father, Theo is taken in by the family of a weal...

#1 NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • John Grisham delivers high-flying international suspense in a stunning legal thriller that marks the return of Mitch McDeere, the brilliant hero of The Firm.“A breathtaking update on the McDeeres and the life they made . . . Grisham, in vintage form, ratchets up the suspense in this winning sequel.” —The Wall Street JournalWhat became of Mitch and Abby McDeere after they exposed the ...

The long-awaited sequel to A Column of Fire, The Armor of Light, heralds a new dawn for Kingsbridge, England, where progress clashes with tradition, class struggles push into every part of society, and war in Europe engulfs the entire continent and beyond.The Spinning Jenny was invented in 1770, and with that, a new era of manufacturing and industry changed lives everywhere within a generation. A world filled with unrest wrestles for control over ...

NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • OPRAH’S BOOK CLUB PICK • MORE THAN ONE MILLION COPIES SOLD! From the author of Dear Edward comes a “powerfully affecting” (People) family story that asks: Can love make a broken person whole?“Another tender tearjerker . . . Napolitano chronicles life’s highs and lows with aching precision.”—The Washington PostONE OF THE CHICAGO PUBLIC LIBRARY’S TEN BEST BOOKS OF THE YEA...

The multi-award winning, #1 national bestselling novel about two unforgettable sisters and a love that illuminates life—from the author of Women Talking and A Complicated KindnessElf and Yoli are two smart, loving sisters leading very different lives. Elfreida is a renowned pianist, wealthy, and happily married. Her younger sister Yolandi is a writer, divorced, broke, and forever chasing after the wrong men in her search for true love. But Elf is ...