Bøger af Peter Corris

It was an impulse buy in a Charing Cross bookshop - Walking Across the World: The Life and Travels of Basil Craft, M.B.E. But from the moment he started reading it Vic Bright's journalist's instinct told him it would make a great film. Once Bright and his journalist partner, Marsha Prentiss, start researching the project, it soon becomes apparent that all was not right with the brothers Craft. The expeditions were real enough - the Crafts in fact were travellers out of their time, undertaking, without modern aids, some of the most hazardous journeys known to man, surviving storms, battles with local tribes and renegades, as well as incredible heat and cold. But they were not the amateur explorers they made themselves out to be, and as Vic and Marsha trace the brothers' extraordinary journeys from Marrakech and the Sahara to Death Valley in Arizona and finally the Gibson Desert in Australia, they find little that tallies with the published record. While Richard remains enigmatic, Basil emerges as a sadistic megalomaniac whose beliefs are as frightening as they are bizarre. What is more, someone is investigating the investigators. It is not until they are in the harsh desert of Bright's native Australia that he and Marsha uncover the truth and falsehood and the mystery begins to make sense. But by then events are well beyond their control. 'Reinforces Corris's reputation as a master storyteller' SUNDAY TELEGRAPH 'Corris is certainly a master of suspense' ADELAIDE ADVERTISER 'Thoroughly readable and utterly believable' TELEGRAPH MIRROR

'I felt lucky. I was heading for the U.S.A., Hollywood and a million dollars. "Deal the cards, Jess," I said.' But not all the cards dealt to Browning turn up trumps. And Richard Browning has a marvelous talent for mucking up even lucky breaks. In fact, he's only really good at one thing; that is, getting away. Sure the would-be Aussie movie star makes it to the U. S. of A., but San Francisco proves to be a long way from the starlets, palm trees and swimming pools of Hollywood, at least by the route only he could choose, through Mexico. And then, when he gets to Beverly Hills, he finds bootleggers in the swimming pools, anarchists on the movie sets and starlets just too hot to handle. Not to mention making an enemy of the 'king' of Hollywood, Douglas Fairbanks - the 'city of dreams' becomes nightmare land. 'Beverly Hills' Browning is the second volume of Richard Browning's memoirs, transcribed from the tapes found among his papers and edited by Peter Corris.

It's an explosive situation, and Corris conjures up an atmosphere of brooding tension. British Jeremiah Islands Protectorate, South Pacific, 1928: District Officer Will Naismith doesn't know it yet, but he is in trouble. The rebellious native leader Eglito is gathering his followers to confront the British once and for all. But there is an even greater threat to Naismith from within his own ranks: from his superior, who is alarmed by Naismith's methods of keeping order, an ambitious young colonial officer and a scheming missionary. When they are joined by Tom Birmingham, a writer with an overactive imagination, his beautiful wife Louise and Richard Webb, war hero turned anthropologist...the islands are set to explode. Corris makes the most of the exotic setting and again conviction in style and character puts it into what deserves to be best-seller league.

'Well, what do you know, ' he said. 'I'm very pleased to meet up with you at last, sport.' I leaned back against the door and started into the mocking grey eyes of Errol Flynn. Down on his luck in southern California in the middle of the Depression, Richard Browning falls back on his charm and good looks to find a soft landing. Coral Smit who runs a motor court in Three Cedars looks like the answer, but Browning discovers that a sleepy little town can harbor more ruthless criminals than LA. Cast adrift, he goes first to Montana, where he works as a cowboy and then back to Hollywood to appear before the cameras with Gary Cooper and Anthony Quinn in The Plainsman. As always, Browning runs into trouble in Hollywood. This time he is caught between the FBI and the Ku Klux Klan and to add to his woes he makes a deadly enemy of an Australian actor named Errol Flynn...

Lying on a blanket beside a smoking camp fire was an irregularly shaped nugget of gold, about the size and roughly the shape of a large marrow. Mount Perfect Ranges, western Victoria, 1872. Henry Fanshaw has stumbled upon one of the largest nuggets ever found in the colony. But it isn't on his land and Fanshaw's troubles are only just beginning. The gold is stolen and Fanshaw, not able to approach the law, calls upon the services of John 'Black' Perry, a touring pugilist, sharpshooter and horseman, to track the thieves. Wimmera Gold is a compelling manhunt of a novel. More than that, it is a novel rich in character and incident, with firebrand pastors, Aboriginal societies on the verge of extinction, and entrepreneurs and opportunists at every turn - it chronicles the fortunes of three quite different societies as they struggle towards a sense of identity. Wimmera Gold also tells the story of three of the most memorable and most driven characters to appear in Peter Corris's fiction: 'Black' Perry himself, in fact a scholar and a gentleman, marginalised by his colour; Daniel Bracken, Irish lawyer hiding in the colonies after becoming unwillingly involved in Home Rule politics; and Wesley Lincoln, drifter from Snakehole, Texas, victim of circumstance and the winds of change, but hauntingly if pragmatically ethical. 'Peter Corris is undoubtedly one of Australia's top storytellers...a substantial and compelling read' SUNDAY MAIL 'Reinforces Corris's reputation as a master Storyteller' SUNDAY TELEGRAPH

'She gazed at me with what I took to be adoration. I gave her a light kiss on the lips. "Is it better the second time?" she said' Richard Browning is a crack-shot, six-foot, all-Australian ex-private-school horseman. He is determined to con his way into the new world of film-making, but his way to Hollywood is thwarted by World War One, a series of unfortunate affairs and a disastrous marriage. In his developing career as box office poison, Browning makes more enemies than movies. 'Box Office' Browning is Browning's recollection of his early days from an ungraceful old age. The truth may be filtered through booze, drugs and a lot of years, but the escapades with the famous and the infamous are a delight. "'Box Office' Browning is rollicking good fun." - Herald

Fred Hollows once predicted Peter Corris would be 'blind in five years and dead in ten' if he didn't start taking care of his diabetes and change his lifestyle. In this candid and engaging account the author acknowledges the potentially fatal consequences of his denial and ignorance and describes how he came to terms with a chronic condition. '... fascinating and easy to read ... immensely valuable to young people or those with newly diagnosed diabetes.' Dr Alan E Stocks A.M.

'One of the bayonets came to rest just below my Adam's apple. I looked down at the shiny steel and then slowly looked along the length of the rifle barrel up into the face of my executioner. He wore thick glasses with metal rims and he had gold fillings in his teeth. I could see the teeth because he was smiling.' All Richard Browning expects is to go through the motions of making a propaganda film, wear an officer's uniform, stay in a few fancy hotels and enjoy the fleshpots of war-time Sydney. Instead, he is forced to slog through the Queensland jungle, dodge bullets and bombs and endure the discomforts of a military prison. As Browning ducks and weaves in and out of trouble, his companions in strife are 'Harry' Kaminaga, Hawaiian-born Japanese soldier, and Ushi Tanvier, Darlinghurst prostitute. His friendship with the hell-raising actor, Peter Finch, offers him some prospect of escape from his problems, but his enemies in Military Intelligence and among the blackmarket racketeers of the big smoke don't see why he should survive World War II. Coming home wasn't meant to be like this...

Luke Dunlop is in Witness Protection. He has one job - to make people disappear. And that's not easy when there's no margin for error and each case is a matter of life and death. Convicted felon Kerry Douglas Loew, recently married in prison, makes a deal to turn informer for a new identity and a new life. Loew can expect no mercy from his former mates, on trial for the murder of an assistant police commissioner. If they reach him, he's dead. Finding a way to hide a man married to a TV star is bad enough, but when Dunlop meets Cassie May Loew the trouble really starts. "Corris's portrayals of Australian crime stand out as uniquely forceful, hard-driven, compassionate." James Ellroy

'Howard Hughes nodded approvingly. "Mistu Kelly," he said. "You and yore buddy sure can fly. It's been a privilege, suh, to go up with you."' After being coerced into doing time in the Royal Canadian Mounted Police, Richard Kelly Browning decides the Mountie life is not for him and escapes via the Yukon and Chicago. Joining forces with compatriot Bluey Tait, he learns to fly and the two of them are contracted to work for Howard Hughes on his multi-million dollar blockbuster, Hell's Angels. The Hollywood life is more Dick's scene and life seems sweet for a while. But his past is just behind a palm tree and threatening to engulf him.

'I wanted to give him an uppercut for his arrogance and to get him to lift his head. He was still looking at his boots. He'd lit the cigarette and smoke was drifting past his face. It's hard to tell from the top of someone's head, but I was sure that I knew him from somewhere...' And that's how Browning met James Dean. Browning's almost past it, teaching punk would-be actors to fall off horses. When the 'toxic little son of a bitch', Jimmy Dean, roars in on his 'sickle', it's the beginning of an odd-couple alliance: they're both in trouble and needing help. In Marfa, Mexico, where Dean, Rock Hudson, Liz Taylor and Browning - are on location, the movie's not the only thing being shot. Is this the end for Browning?

'I'm in love with Vivien Leigh, and I'm the most miserable bastard on earth.' When Browning's old drinking mate Peter Finch utters these words, Browning realizes that trouble looms. Within the space of a few short hours he finds himself caught up in a London bar room brawl, held in isolation in a lockup, and employed as chauffeur to Vivien Leigh. But his problems really begin when he is sent on location to Ceylon together with Leigh and Finch to film Elephant Walk. As the heat rises so do the stakes as Browning becomes embroiled in passionate liaisons and the desperate search for a missing son - all set against the political hotbed of Colombo. The seventh Browning adventure in which Peter Corris once more demonstrates his finely polished skills as a consummate storyteller.

The Witness Protection Unit's Luke Dunlop has one job - to make people disappear. And that's not easy when there's no margin for error and each case is a matter of life and death. Ex-cop David Scanlon is about to deliver red-hot evidence about his former colleagues to the Sate Counter Corruption Authority. Dunlop has to make sure no-one gets to Scanlon first. When Scanlon's sixteen-year-old daughter goes missing from the safe house, Dunlop's problems are just beginning... "Corris's portrayals of Australian crime stand out as uniquely forceful, hard-driven, compassionate." James Ellroy

'The big black car came up out of nowhere... I heard a siren and slowed down and pulled over like an honest citizen. The next thing I knew two men with hats pulled down over their eyes and sunglasses on above their tough expressions were pulling open the front doors of my car. I heard May Lin scream and saw a gun...' Hollywood. Studio screenwriter Hart Sallust, well-known patron of sleazy bars and nightclubs, has disappeared. Peter McVey, private eye, has been hired to find him. In unfamiliar territory, McVey enlists Browning - part-time actor, part-time private eye - at home in any Hollywood bar. From Hollywood bars to the Chinese underworld, their search uncovers the beautiful May Lin. With Sallust when he disappeared, and seemingly inconsolable. Or is she? Her story has 'more holes in it than a flyscreen'. This fast-paced, witty novel from Peter Corris features a cameo appearance from Raymond Chandler - master crime-writer and friend of McVey's. His advice: find out what Sallust was writing when he disappeared...

A priceless painting by famous English artist J.M.W. Turner has been rediscovered, and its owners must be traced before it can be sold. But who owns the painting? The answer to that question involves a search spanning seventy years and three continents: from Stalinist Russia to Hollywood in the silent movie era, revolutionary Bolivia, Australia, New Guinea. Linking the destinies of the Gulliver family is the skullduggery of the contemporary art market. Sweeping in its emotional, social and historical range, set against the panorama of twentieth-century history, The Gulliver Fortune is a gripping, absorbing novel. 'An epic with a vast global sweep'. Sunday Sun, Melbourne 'Reinforces Corns' reputation as a master storyteller'. Sunday Telegraph, Sydney 'Fast-moving and engrossing'. Advertiser, Adelaide

The extraordinary life of Australia's most controversial doctorThis is the revealing, personal story of the man behind the controversial pro-euthanasia movement, told in his own words. Medical doctor, humanist, author and founder/director of Exit International, Philip Nitschke's life has always been in the spotlight.The book spans Philip's early days, from his curious, activist student days in Adelaide, to working with Aboriginal land rights groups in Australia's Far North; to his successful campaign to have euthanasia legalised in Australia and his assistance in four people ending their lives before the law was overturned.It covers the controversy surrounding Philip's work, including the banning in Australia of his international bestselling book The Peaceful Pill, and disturbing reports that many young people overdosed on Nembutal, the drug that Exit International recommends for suicide.Ultimately, Philip believes that the right to one's own death is as fundamental as the right to control one's own life: 'It seems we demand humans to live with indignity, pain and anguish whereas we are kinder to our pets when their suffering becomes too much.'

The second novel in the Cliff Hardy series, being re-released in a new package to celebrate the publication of the fortieth Cliff Hardy book.