Showing results by narrator "Dino Marnika" in All Categories

The Calabrian Mafia in Australia is alive and well. This is the first time its real story in this country has ever been told. The Calabrian mafia is Australia's oldest, largest and most ruthless crime syndicate, trafficking drugs worth billions of dollars and laundering the proceeds through sophisticated international networks. Enforcing discipline with age-old tools of violence and intimidation, the Calabrians have been responsible for nearly 40 murders in Australia since the mid-1970s and many more before that.

Paul is trying to escape. He's trying to escape from an Italian heritage that just doesn't seem to have any relevance for him anymore, and he's trying to escape from his nonno. They come from two different worlds, he and his grandfather, and Paul is more interested in his own world, his friends, the girls, the go-carts, than Nonno's strange and embarrassing behavior.

Cliff Hardy has his PI license back - but does he still have what it takes to cut it on the mean streets of Sydney? Cliff reckons the skills are still there, if a little rusty, and actor Bobby Forrest's case looks promising. Bobby's a nice enough guy, but why is he being stalked by a red-hot brunette? And why did he have to go online to find a date? When Bobby is murdered, it comes as a shock. Cliff's only solid lead is a white Commodore, the most ubiquitous car around.

Arranging the hit on Fabio was a low act, and Les knew it. And when you get Sydney's deadliest killer to do the hit, there's always a quid pro quo. In this case, Les had to take a trip to Nimbin to help an old army mate of Eddie Salita's open a bar, the Double L Ranch. Which suited Les, since he had to take his friend Tony Nathan to the waxhead wedding of the year at Bluey's Beach, and it was on the way. The waxhead wedding of the year turned into the ethnic brawl of the decade.

All Les Norton wanted was a quiet coffee and Sacher cake at the Hakoah Club in Bondi, and to be left alone to sort out his troubled love life. How he let notorious conman Kelvin Kramer talk him up to Surfers Paradise for five days, Les will never know. He went along expecting some relaxation in the sun, the chance to earn a little money, and possibly a little fresh romance. Les definitely got the earn. He certainly got the girl. But what Norton mainly got in Surfers Paradise was trouble. In a size 40 Double-D cup.

All easy-going butcher Bob Davis wanted after his divorce was to get on with his job, have a few beers with his mates, and be left alone. But this was Sydney in the early Eighties-the beginnings of the AIDS epidemic, street gangs, gay bashings and murders. When a gang of skinheads bash Davo's old school- friend to death simply because he was gay, and leave Davo almost dead in an intensive care unit, they unleash a crazed killer onto the city streets.

All it took was a summer's day and a flat tire on his push-bike, and Les is out on bail and on the run from a gun-happy street gang intent on a drive-by. So, with Warren's help, Les Norton defendant, becomes Len Gordon film director, safely ensconced at the ultra-swish Opal Springs Health Resort till Eddie can sort things out back in Sydney.

English aristocrat Isabel de Rolland is sent to Australia to marry Marmaduke Gamble, the debts of her family being paid in exchange for the respectability her lineage gives the rich ex-convict Gamble family. Despite all odds, Isabel and Marmaduke develop a grudging friendship that over time blooms into something more. But the secrets of the past continue to haunt them and the madness in both their families threatens their hard-won happiness.

Cliff Hardy may still have the moves but he's in trouble. The economy's tanking and he's been conned by an unscrupulous financial advisor and lost everything he's got. Cliff only knows one way, and that's forward, so he's following the money trail. It's a twisted road that leads him down deep into Sydney's underbelly, into the territory of big money, bent deals, big yachts, and bad people. Cliff's in greater danger than ever before, but he's as tenacious as a dog with a bone.

Four major stress factors: a marriage break-up, moving house, loss of income for the family, and a new school. Link James and his sister Claire get the lot! How does a boy from the wealthy side of town cope with the tough guys at Westlands? How does the bad boy tag his father gave him influence his life? The constant moving threads of Link's life up their tempo as he becomes a victim of his own perceptions and actions.

There's no two ways about Les Norton - the carrot-topped country boy who works as a bouncer at Sydney's top illegal casino. He's tough and he's mean. He's got a granite jaw, fists like hams, and they say the last time he took a tenner from his wallet Henry Lawson blinked at the light. Lethal but loyal, he's always good for a laugh. In this, the third collection of Les Norton adventures, Les gets his boss off the hook. But not without the help of the boy from Binjiwunyawunya. Les then finds himself in a spot of bother in Long Bay Gaol then in a lot more bother on a St. Kilda tram in Melbourne.

Surprising, illuminating, and at times shocking, What Men Don't Talk About reveals how real men and boys view their world. What do men and boys long for, agonize over, aspire to? Every day, we read articles about men: men at home, men at work, and men in bed, but still the confusion and frustration between the sexes remain. Can we put the differences between men and women down to the influence of Venus and Mars, or are there more intricate dynamics at play?

Robert G Barrett's Rosa-Marie's Baby is action, romance, and intrigue with a diabolical twist. Set in Melbourne, Lorne and Apollo Bay, Victoria, it proves once again why Robert G Barrett is called the king of popular Australian fiction.

This wasn't Hardy's usual brief - uncover the mysteries of a nineteenth-century shipwreck - but he could do with an easy case and the retainer was generous. But is it ever that simple? Not with a notorious crime family tearing itself apart, and an undercover cop playing both sides against the middle. These and an alluring but fiercely ambitious female journalist give Hardy all the trouble he can handle.

Okay, so it looks like the Kelly Club is finally closing down - it had to happen sooner or later. And it isn’t as if Les Norton will starve. He has money snookered away, he owns his house, and his blue-chip investment - a block of flats in Randwick - must be worth a fortune by now. Except that the place is falling down, the council is reclaiming the land, there’s been a murder in Flat 5, and the tenants are the biggest bunch of misfits since the Manson family.

Les is quite happy resting up after the flu when Warren has to tip him into an earn. Norton's mate from the Albanian Mafia, Bodene Menjou, is planning to make the most politically correct movie ever made in Australia, Gone With the Willy Willy, and has a script stolen. If Les can find it, a lazy $50,000 could fall in. How can Norton say no?

Norton's old friend turned out to be the biggest brothel owner in America. Madam to the stars. Through her, Les met Mitzi Moonkiss; he also met the Japanese Yakuza, lesbian geisha girls and every time he put his head out the door some boofhead US Marine was looking for a fight. And these were all the nice people. Somewhere in the middle a crazed serial killer was on the loose with a bayonet. Aloha, Les.

Moving into his old flame Susie's flat in Bondi should have been a piece of cake for Les Norton - except that Price and Eddie had other ideas. There were two bodies buried under the handball courts at the Bondi baths. The man to get them out? Major Garrick Lewis, aka, The Gecko. With Norton for company, The Gecko literally took Bondi, and everything that went with it, in stride - Mossad hit squads, the KGB, ASIO, yobbo builders and loose women looking for action. And for once, Les is flat out keeping up.

When Cliff Hardy signs on as a bodyguard for charismatic populist Rory O’Hara, who is about to embark on a campaign of social and political renewal, it looks like a tricky job; O’Hara has enemies. Sure enough, a murder and a kidnapping soon cause the campaign to fall apart. Hired to investigate the murder, Hardy uncovers hidden agendas among O’Hara’s staff and powerful political and commercial forces at work.