Nutshell
Ian McEwan $32.99 HB **BiP Price $27.99
Nutshell is a classic story of murder and deceit, told by a narrator with a unique voice in contemporary literature. A bravura performance, it is the finest recent work from a true master. Trudy has betrayed her husband, John. She is still in the marital home – a dilapidated, priceless London townhouse – but not with John. Instead, she is with his brother, the profoundly banal Claude, and the two of them have a plan. But there is a witness to their plot: the inquisitive, nine-month-old resident of Trudy's womb. Told from a perspective unlike any other, Nutshell is a classic tale of murder and deceit from one of the world’s master storytellers.
Minds of Winter
Ed O’Loughlin $32.99 PB
In the new novel from the Booker long-listed author Ed O'Loughlin, a meeting between two strangers sheds light on the greatest unsolved mystery of polar exploration. Minds of Winter begins with a chance encounter at the top of the world. Fay Morgan and Nelson Nilsson have each arrived in Inuvik, Canada - 120 miles north of the Arctic Circle - searching for answers about a family member: Nelson for his estranged older brother, Fay for her disappeared grandfather. They soon learn that these two men have an unexpected link - a hidden share in an enduring polar mystery. In a feat of extraordinary scope and ambition, Ed O'Loughlin moves between a frozen present and an-ever thawing past, and from the minds of two present-day wanderers to the lives some of polar history's most enigmatic figures. Minds of Winter is a novel about ice and time and their ability to preserve or destroy, of mortality and loss and our dreams of transcending them.
Nothing Short of Dying
Erik Storey $29.99 PB
Clyde Barr has been on the run for sixteen years. Now he’s back in the Colorado wilderness, hoping for some peace and quiet. Then Clyde receives a frantic phone call for help from his sister Jen. But the line goes dead. She’s been taken.
Clyde doesn’t know where Jen is. He doesn’t know who has her. He doesn’t know how much time he has. All he knows is that nothing short of dying will stop him from saving her…
The Rules of Backyard Cricket
Jock Serong $29.99 PB
Jock Serong’s novel begins in a suburban backyard with Darren Keefe and his older brother, sons of a fierce and gutsy single mother. The endless glow of summer, the bottomless fury of contest. All the love and hatred in two small bodies poured into the rules of a made-up game. Darren has two big talents: cricket and trouble. No surprise that he becomes an Australian sporting star of the bad-boy variety—one of those men who always gets away with things. Until the day we meet him, middle-aged, in the boot of a car. Gagged, cable-tied, a bullet in his knee. Everything pointing towards a shallow grave. The Rules of Backyard Cricket is a novel of suspense in the tradition of Peter Temple’s Truth. With glorious writing harnessed to a gripping narrative, it observes celebrity, masculinity—humanity—with clear-eyed lyricism and exhilarating narrative drive. Recommended by Deborah.
