AustLit

'Lyn Sutton, now in her 20s, finally tracks down her dad–last seen when she was six and he was arrested for robbery and murder. Remarried, with a second family and a plumbing business in New South Wales, dad Roger is hardly eager to acknowledge Lyn, but soon this reconciliation takes second place as she responds to a note–misdelivered–desperately asking for help to avert a murder! The purported sender, Vi–living with her charming husband; wheelchair-bound nephew, Peter; and cantankerous, independent, alcoholic in-law, the aging Edith–seems, to Lyn, to be quite safe, until the brakes slip on Edith's car, nearly leveling her. Accidental? Meanwhile, a dashing young man on a motorcycle is following Lyn; Edith, perhaps despondent, ingests something fatal; and Peter's tutor casts new light on the rock-climbing slip that crippled the youngster–or did it? There's a tortuous caving expedition before Lyn understands exactly who in Vi's house is really being menaced–and how it ties in (all too neatly) with her dad's crime of years ago.'

Source: Kirkus Reviews.

'Trisha Kent, by inheritance a silent partner in a Queensland (Australia) furniture firm owned by distant relatives-by-marriage, leaves Melbourne to meet the family she's never seen, and to decide how she should vote in a proposed takeover. Awaiting her in Queensland: a brace of brothers at the firm's helm; the firm's attractive accountant, who'll teach Trisha to ride horseback, and then some; a paraplegic craftsman, as bitter as his wife is loving; and the aggrieved wife of Cousin Julian–who had not only dipped into the till and skipped off for distant parts, but had actually tried to murder his spouse. Before the sort-out, there'll be a murder and an attempted one, arson, a gun-barrel confrontation and the work of an exceptional mare who earns her oats.'

Source: Kirkus Reviews.

'To the mud and rains of gold-rush-town Gympie (Queensland) come charming gambling-man Robert Walden, his apprehensive but loyal wife Elizabeth, and their children Edward and Sarah. Robert's sure he'll bottom out a claim in no time, but it looks like hard times. Elizabeth, however, takes courage from the friendship of Maggie Doyle, owner of the Wild Swan hotel, whose cockney accent chimes like Bow Bells–until Maggie reveals that she is in truth Lady Margaret Doyle down on her luck. There are other pleasant neighbors: Dr. Abraham Miller, brilliant and usually drunk; Bert Peters, Miller's genial partner in their apparently paid-out claim; John Trent, kind store-owner (who will fall in love with Elizabeth and urge her to leave Robert); and Jim and Molly Burton, honorable folk farming in aborigine country. But then son Edward is killed in a fall, and raging Robert blames and threatens drunken, slow Doc Miller. So when someone soon murders Miller, Robert is naturally suspected. The family is ostracized, even Elizabeth cannot quite believe in Robert's innocence, and–after threats and hurts and a close escape with the Burtons from an aborigine massacre–the principal characters meet by a flooded river bank for a harrowing show-down, ending with the confession and death of the murderer.'

Source: Kirkus Reviews.

'High-school teacher Philip Blair is blind, so when a nice teenage girl befriends him at the bus stop and then gets into a man's car–and is later found murdered–Philip can't identify the man in the car. Frustrated, he insists on sleuthing, with some aid from his estranged girlfriend and his policeman buddy, and it soon seems that another teenage girl's recent death may be connected. And is yet another girl, who perhaps saw what the other two saw, slated for murder? Not only does Philip solve the crime and triumph over the killer in a Wait Until Dark-style duel; he also learns to accept his blindness and the love of his loyal lady.'

Source: Kirkus Reviews

'Francine, and her brother Tony, about to be 5, see their uncle shoot and kill an unknown woman but Fran, unsure if Uncle Hilton has seen them, decides to guard Tony against disclosures, keeps her secret from her widow mother, and is almost destroyed by tormenting fears. Her mother's desperate efforts to get a successful crop from the orchard, the advent of a new neighbor, Hugh Ryland, whom Fran trusts, the easing of her watchfulness when Uncle Hilton displays no wariness, and the final crisis ten months later when Tony shatters her little complacency by a chance remark to their uncle, bring about a dangerous climax. It is Ryland and the detective Collings who are responsible for the children's safety, for Hilton's apprehension – and for the complete dissipation of Fran's nightmares. The orchard country bush life of Australia, the impact on young Fran of watchful waiting, and the incidents that make up the ten months period combine to make this more than a routine suspense novel and give it a special interest.'

Source: Kirkus Reviews.