Scobie Malone Series by Jon Cleary
Scobie Malone #1
The High Commissioner
Jon Cleary
THE HIGH COMMISSIONER is the first novel in the Inspector Scobie Malone series, by award-winning Australian author Jon Cleary. When the High Commissioner is accused of murder, Sydney-based Inspector Scobie Malone is given the job of going to London and bringing him back. At the same time, the High Commissioner’s murder is being planned to create discord at the Peace Conference, and anarchy in Saigon.
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Scobie Malone #2
Helga's Web
Jon Cleary
Set in Sydney, Australia, where a young girl is involved in blackmail, Detective-Sergeant Malone reaches Helga too late to warn her about her dangerous game. She has already received her final pay-off. The author also wrote "Gunscope" and "The Sundowners".
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Scobie Malone #3
Ransom
Jon Cleary
This is a crime novel from the author of "The Sundowners" and "The High Commissioner". It was Lisa Malone's misfortune to share a lift with the wife of the Mayor, for whom a political kidnapping had been arranged. For Malone, private detective, it was a new experience to be the victim.
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Scobie Malone #4
Dragons at the Party
Jon Cleary
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."
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Scobie Malone #5
Now and Then, Amen
Jon Cleary
Publisher's WeeklyThis Australian writer is known for The Sundowners and 35 more novels, including the four featuring Inspector Scobie Malone of Sydney. Cleary's urbane wit blunts the sting in this story about the circumstances leading to the murder of Sister Mary Magdalene. The nun's body is found outside a luxurious brothel where Malone starts the investigation that leads to an artist known as Miss O'Keefe, who turns out to be Brigid Hourigan, the victim's mother. He learns that the young woman was illegitimate, unacknowledged by Bridgid's millionaire father, Fingal, and her brother, Archbishop Kerry Hourigan. The influential old man's associates, like a small army, form powerful barriers to the detective. But he digs deep, looking for clues in the nun's service to the needy in Nicaragua, in Fingal's early years in Chicago and the source of his fortune. The sad truth closes the case, one of the hero's most intricate and exciting. Mystery Guild featured alternate. (Feb.) Library JournalCleary's newest Australian thriller featuring Scobie Malone commences with the discovery of a murdered nun's body on the doorstep of an exclusive brothel. As Malone investigates the apparent bad joke, he finds that all clues point to zillionaire patriarch and Sydney businessman Fingal Hourigan (illegitimate grandfather of the dead nun). Various aspects of Fingal's sordid Chicago past, nefarious activities, and present Nicaraguan associates, along with flashbacks about the nun, her mother, and her uncle the archbishop, provide more than enough substantive grist for Cleary's narrative mill. Three parts family saga, then, for every one part intrigue, but solid entertainment.-- REK
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