Indigenous

Artist is a Thief, The

Karen — Wed, 20 Jun 2007 12:21:13 +1000

ISBN 9781865085333

Blurb from the book:

Margaret Thatcher Gandarrwuy is an internationally renowned Aboriginal artist from the remote Mission Hole community in the Northern Territory. Her works command high prices - until a new painting is unveiled. It is discovered slashed, with the words hastily scrawled across it, 'The artist is a thief'. Is the artist a thief? Is she to blame, or is she the victim of somebody else's fraud?

This is a philosophical detective novel with a difference, set in a world where everyone but the 'detective' knows the rules. Jean-Loup Wild, a Melbourne financial consultant sent by ATSIC to Mission Hole, is caught between the art world, with its wealth, fashions, heroes and sophisticated private language, and the Aboriginal community with its poverty, social problems, kinship ties and unchanging traditional law. If Jean-Loup can find the artist he can begin to find the secret of what has been happening at Mission Hole. He can begin, also, to understand how the layers of that mystery lie deep in the bedrock of Australian society.

Reviews / Chat about this book

How did you feel about The Artist as Thief?

Submitted by helen on Thu, 13/09/2007 - 11:18pm.

Technorati Tags:

DEATH ADDER DREAMING - Ian Moffitt

Karen — Mon, 01 Oct 2007 12:15:44 +1000

Diamond Dove

Karen — Wed, 20 Jun 2007 12:20:59 +1000

|ISBN 1921145307

Blurb from the book

Emily Tempest has been away from Central Australia for a long time - uni, travel, dead-end jobs. Finding trouble all over the world. Now she's back at Moonlight Downs, the community where she grew up, half in the Aboriginal world, half in the white. And true to form, there's trouble. An old friend brutally murdered and mutilated. An old enemy the only suspect. Until Emily starts asking questions.

Take a nail-biting mystery, an epic setting and a heroine with a talent for stirring things up. Throw in an affectionate flogging of outback Australia's melanoma-encrusted hide - and Diamond Dove may be the wittiest and most gripping debut of the year.

(Now released overseas under the title Moonlight Downs)

Reviews / Chat about this book

Detectives Beyond Borders: Peter's beautifully articulated comments are at: http://detectivesbeyondborders.blogspot.com/2007/01/diamond-dove.html

How did you Feel about Diamond Dove?

Submitted by Karen on Wed, 29/08/2007 - 3:35pm.

Technorati Tags:

Scream Black Murder

Karen — Wed, 20 Jun 2007 12:21:11 +1000

ISBN 1875641

Blurb from the book

Human flesh decays five times more slowly when wet. The rain began at two in the morning; by three, the naked bodies which lay in the shallow stormwater drain beside the railway track were half covered by a fast-running stream.

How Did you Feel About Scream Black Murder?

Submitted by Karen on Thu, 20/09/2007 - 5:16pm.

Technorati Tags:

Sweet Water Stolen Land

Karen — Wed, 20 Jun 2007 12:21:12 +1000

ISBN 1875641777

Blurb from the book

Sweet Water Stolen Land is intriguing. Completely fictional with elements of true history interwoven, the book delves immediately into the issues of black resettlement and the church's involvement in removing Indigenous people from their traditional lands for the purposes of rural development.

Very cleverly though, McLaren has taken what could have been seen as a tired and political tirade and turned it into an exciting and thrilling novel. German missionary couple Karl and Gudrun Maresch see the outback as a new start. An exciting opportunity to spread the "good word" of the Lutheran Church to the disenfranchised indigenous population of Coonabarabran.

For traditional Kamilaroi people like Ginny and Wollumbuy, it too seems like a good idea. A sanctuary from greed and violence as frontier life forces them from their traditional homelands. But when a mysterious crop of deaths starts to take the lives of nearby white settler families, the finger of evidence is pointed squarely at the "natives".

The inevitable clash of destinies between white and black reaches a tumultuous conclusion that threatens the lives of everyone involved.

How Did you Feel About Sweet Water Stolen Land?

Submitted by Karen on Thu, 20/09/2007 - 5:19pm.

Technorati Tags:

There'll Be New Dreams

Karen — Wed, 20 Jun 2007 12:21:19 +1000

ISBN 1875641769

Blurb from the book

Sophisticated and profound, human, pacy and funny, this is a shuttle-ride of a novel. Philip McLaren gives us a view of the world through the eyes of realistic yet highly individual characters, in a journey from earthy country town to city rhythm and the wonderful harbour of dreams. A voyage of talent through marriage, official kidnap, family roots, mystic Clevermen, music, art, courtroom battles, the charm of youth and the tragedy that lurks in a darkened alley or a splash of molten metal: love, choice, chance and hidden forces, those sometimes eerie, somehow right patterns of life bring the unforgettable Lottie to her ultimate fate.

How Did you Feel About There'll Be New Dreams?

Submitted by Karen on Thu, 20/09/2007 - 5:21pm.

Technorati Tags: