Scobie Malone

It is Bicentenary year and Australia is having the party of its lifetime. Detective Inspector Scobie Malone, hero of three previous Cleary books and the most human of cops, would much rather be out on Sydney Harbor with his family, watching the fun. Instead he is on duty, investigating the murder of an aide to President Timori, who has just arrived unwanted in Australia following a coup in the Spice Islands republic of Palucca. With Timori is his glamorous wife, Delvina, a lady as famous for her extravagance as for her lust for power. Clearly the bullet was meant for the president, and Malone has the task of tracking down the hit man before he takes a second shot. Malone identifies the would-be assassin as Miguel Seville, an international terrorist now turned contract man, a hired killer who wants to retire and needs the money from this job to achieve his aim. Malone also suspects that Seville is in contact with a young Aboriginal rights activist. But who is paying Seville, and why? Prime Minister Philip Norval, an ex-TV star who is lost without his advisors, turns out to be an old flame of Delvina's from the days when she was a dancer in Sydney. Business tycoon Russell Hickbed, though a reluctant host to the Timoris, has his own reasons for wanting President Timori protected. And interfering in the cast at every opportunity is Hans Vaderberg, premier of the state of New South Wales, political enemy of Prime Minister Norval, and master of every political trick ever devised. In this gripping new novel, Jon Cleary has set an ominous cat-and-mouse game in a sophisticated city intent on celebrating. But carried on the wind at the edge of the city, fire, the summer scourge of Australia, is scorching the bush and destroying people's homes. Not all Australians will celebrate this two hundredth birthday and Malone knows it.

A nun is found murdered on the steps of the Quality Couch, Sydney's most expensive house of ill repute. She is Sister Mary Magdalene, an idealistic young woman who previously had worked at a mission in Nicaragua. Detective Inspector Scobie Malone, that most human of cops, picks up the trail when he discovers that her real name was Teresa Hourigan-the illegitimate granddaughter of Fingal Hourigan, one of Australia's most powerful businessmen, who is currently entertaining some rich contras at his palatial home. The case leads Malone deep into Hourigan's murky past and threatens to expose the secret the old man has kept since 1929: the reason he hurriedly left Chicago in fear for his life. It also threatens to destroy his ambitions for his son, Archbishop Kerry Hourigan: to become the first-ever Australian pope. But Kerry's fanatical anti-communism has already led him to acts that will fatally endanger his standing in the Vatican.

In 1966 Sir Walter Springfellow, head of Australian intelligence, vanished mysteriously and without a trace. As a young constable, Scobie Malone investigated the disappearance. Years later some bones are found up in the hills which are presumed to be Sir Walter's, and Detective Inspector Malone finds himself back on the case. His first task is to break the news to Venetia Springfellow, Sir Walter's glamorous widow, whose ruthless ambition has made the Springfellow Corporation a hugely successful company. Then comes news that there has been another death in the family, and one of the Springfellows is to be charged with murder. The police commissioner turns out to have every reason for taking a close interest in the case, but emotional involvement results in his putting unfair pressure on Scobie Malone. Always a straight cop and a decent man, Malone finds his divided loyalties extremely troubling.

A young woman named Mardi Jack is killed by a sniper's bullet in a Sydney apartment apparently owned by a wealthy businessman, Boru O'Brien, who has ties to seedy goings-on and to the prime minister's wife. O'Brien, the real target of the assassin, had been a cadet with Detective Inspector Scobie Malone two decades earlier, and after Jim Knoble, another police academy classmate, is also professionally shot, the mantle falls to Malone to investigate the case. Forced into hiding and afraid for the safety of his family, Malone must find a psychopathic murderer before he too is stopped by a killer's bullet.

In the town of Collamundra, Australia, the corpse of Japanese farm manager Kenji Sagawa is found in one of his cotton mill's threshing machines. The prosperity that his company had brought to the small town had also engendered racial tension, and Detective Inspector Scobie Malone of the Sydney Police Department is called in to investigate-hardly a vacation. The local corrupt government and law enforcement resent him, and the Aborigine population gets ever more restless. When the only Aboriginal police officer becomes the target of everyone's frustration, Scobie becomes increasingly sympathetic-as well as increasingly involved with the cold murder case of the wife of Collamundra's most famous citizen seventeen years prior. As more and more people flock to this dry town for its annual horse race, the list of suspects becomes longer and longer. Can Malone the visitor crack the case?

In the heat of an Australian summer, Inspector Scobie Malone of the New South Wales police finds the body of a promising informer, Scungy Grime, floating face down in his family's backyard swimming pool. Scobie is investigating Sydney's major drug-dealing operation, and Grime's murder is a clear warning. Malone's family is put under police protection-a nightmare for Scobie, who had always been able to separate his professional obligations from his home life. But Scobie is determined not to be frightened off the job and leads the search for the murderer.  Scungy Grime turns out to be only the first victim of an innovative killer who injects his victims with curare. The trail leads in many directions: to Grime's former boss, retired big-time criminal Jack Aldwych; to Aldwych's son, Junior, who is using his father's ill-gotten fortune to build a legitimate business empire; to Junior's unlikely girlfriend, Janis, a tough-nut social worker who counsels drug addicts; and to the original target, Sydney's drug king, Danny Pelong, who is annoyed because an unknown newcomer is muscling in on his patch.  The case before Malone is baffling. Worried as he is for his family's safety, distracted by his partner's troublesome love life, with the bite of economic recession casting gloom, this dark summer seems endless-until a vital clue appears, and the case begins to unravel.

When local solicitor Will Rockne is found in his car by his wife-shot through the head-it seems a baffling and motiveless murder. However, Scobie Malone, newly assigned to the case, has his suspicions. Despite his daughter Claire's shy romance with young Jason Rockne, Scobie and his wife Lisa's encounters with Will and Olive Rockne at school functions have always been a little disconcerting … Will had been determined to convince them that he was more than just a suburban lawyer.  But when a huge amount of cash is found in a safe in Rockne's office, Scobie discovers that he wasn't just boasting; he would seem to have been caught up in something big-big enough to involve Bernie Bezrow, Sydney's largest bookmaker, the mysterious Shahriver offshore bank, and an elusive, undoubtedly dangerous Russian.  Somewhere in this labyrinth lies the key to a ruthless murder, and Scobie is determined to pursue it to the end … until his investigation is thwarted by an unexpected source and he is met with a wall of deceit and evasiveness. To break it down will demand all of his skills and experience and will put the lives of young Claire and Jason in terrible danger.

When the Sydney police minister's son falls twenty floors to his death, the politics of murder ripple the city like a boulder into a pool. Caught in the wash is Detective Inspector Scobie Malone, as he uncovers an elaborate financial scheme, a series of cold-blooded precision killings, and layers of political intrigue. Scobie thinks he is immune to politics, but he is soon engulfed in its consequences: The police minister applies pressure, a millionaire banker becomes less than his public image, a hit man goes about his grisly work, and three of Sydney's most powerful (and libidinous) women give Scobie a glimpse of how life in Sydney really operates. Finally, when he is forced to accept aid from his onetime enemy, top criminal Jack Aldwych, now retired but still ruthless, Malone learns once again that when politics and money are arrayed against him, the odds are never even.

Scobie Malone's job as a homicide cop is to try to keep murder at bay. His job as a father is to keep his family safe. Now, as the eyes of the world are turning toward his city, both of Malone's careers are in serious jeopardy. An important politician is murdered in high-profile public as his nation rushes toward center stage in the international arena. The assassination is clean and professional-and senseless on the surface. Malone knows, however, that violent death is sometimes politics' strangest and darkest bedfellow. And before thousands of visitors descend on his city, the dedicated detective will have to put himself in the line of fire to flush out a killer. But he won't be alone in someone's rifle sight. An ambitious young reporter will be joining Scobie Malone in harm's way: his daughter.

Love never dies … unless a killer intervenes. The Hotel Southern Savoy has become the reluctant host to two corpses on a single night-and homicide inspector Scobie Malone knows this investigation will be a nightmare from the moment he arrives. The first victim was the wife of the American ambassador, a slaying that will certainly have international repercussions-and worse, if the lady's dark secrets are ever revealed. But it's the second murder that strikes straight at Malone's heart. The dead man was the husband of a woman from Malone's past, a brief love long over but never forgotten. An assassin has violently blended Malone's personal and professional lives in a lethal stew of blood and memory, and there's no way the dedicated policeman's going to walk away from this one unscathed. But even Scobie Malone doesn't realize how deadly a concoction it truly is-and by the time he does, it may be too late.

From an Australian "literary institution" (Sydney Morning Herald), the latest mystery featuring homicide detective and family man Scobie Malone The time has come for Scobie Malone to leave the homicide and serial offenders unit of the Sydney police, and his last investigation could be the most bizarre case ever to cross his desk. Called in when a housemaid is found dead in a dot-com millionaire's penthouse, Malone suspects he's dealing with a kidnapping gone wrong. In fact, it couldn't have gone more wrong. The kidnappers thought they had grabbed the man's girlfriend-how were they supposed to know that the millionaire liked slipping into her designer dresses when she wasn't around? The plot thickens further when it is revealed that the dot-com bubble has burst, leaving the erstwhile millionaire in debt to the Yakuza and Malone on the trail of some old adversaries. Throw in the ex-wife, a mistress or two, and the mother of all outlaws, and you have a case that might well confound the greatest inspector in Australia.