In Brief

South Australian publishers Wakefield Press claim on their website: ‘We love good stories and make beautiful books.’ Poinciana has narrative potential, but is undermined by weak characterisation and unpredictable changes in time and narrative. What makes it a ‘beautiful book’, though, is its exotic backdrop of New Caledonia and its depictions of the landscape, including the brilliant red-flowered tree, the Poinciana.

Murder in the Dark is a worthy addition to the vast Phryne Fisher collection. Fans of this well-researched series will be pleased to rediscover the usual St Kilda cast, and will welcome the diverse, if not always likeable, supporting cast of profligate party-goers, polo-playing cowgirls, sultry American jazz musicians, rather luscious young men and the occasional goat.

Fisher, the waspishly slim, ever-fashionable and cunning detective, is endowed with looks as deadly as her pearl-handled Beretta. Despite holding a high social ranking in 1920s Melbourne, she enjoys breaking societal rules as much as author Kerry Greenwood does generic ones (using an unconventional figure as her heroine). If she were male, Fisher’s drinking, smoking, casual sex and choice of profession would be a less entertaining stereotype. Aficionados of the series will enjoy the latest misconstrual of Fisher’s behaviour and femininity: a male character always manages to underestimate her abilities, intelligence or openness to all members of society.

Longing is the central player in these interlinked short stories, set in India and Australia. Liz Gallois’s characters are questing individuals, resisting the hand that life has dealt them. They negotiate relationships that are fraught with tension – sexual, racial, cultural – all affected by the frailty of their understanding of who they are and what they want.

Western writing that uses India and Indians as counterpoints often veers towards exoticism, but there is a refreshing lack of sentimentality and stereotypes in Gallois’ stories. An individual and confident voice, she often challenges assumptions, sometimes distorting the lens through which the West views ‘India’.

Debra Dean’s novel, The Madonnas of Leningrad, is an exploration of memory and demonstrates how that most mysterious of faculties can both save and fail us. Utilising parallel narratives, Dean tells the story of Marina, a guide at Leningrad’s Hermitage Museum in 1941. As the German army advances, Marina and her colleagues labour to remove and conceal precious works of art. Later, the employees of the Hermitage and their families live in the museum basement, and try to survive the harsh winter with limited provisions.

Glen St John Barclay and Caroline Turner’s Humanities Research Centre offers the first historical overview of this prestigious Australian National University-based institution. Their book is an extremely dense yet remarkably comprehensive and well-written homage to one of the key international sites of scholarly research in the humanities.

Sit down to read this book: it may give you a severe case of déjà vu. At the Typeface is an anthology of articles originally published in the Victorian Society of Editors’ newsletter between 1970 and early 2001 (since then the newsletters have been appearing online at www.socedvic.org). And, no surprises, the issues that trouble editors today have a long provenance: editors are underpaid and undervalued; marketing departments have more sway than editorial ones; publishers keep costs down by a reliance on freelancers; neophyte editors find it difficult to gain practical experience when there are few in-house positions.

A personal renaissance, with a raison d’ệtre of such significance that it shifts the reverie of the characters in this book into a dimension of former youthfulness and revitalises the possibilities that seem to vanish with age: On a Wing and a Prayer is about friendship, loyalty and respect in the lives of three ordinary people drawn together under extraordinary circumstances in a small country town in central New South Wales. It confounds the adage that once you have reached a certain stage in life there is no further use for you.

‘Black Widow’ is the name given to the female Chechen rebels, who were widows of insurgents killed by the Russian army in Chechnya. They went on to serve under Shamil Basayev, leader of the Beslan school siege in September 2004. Sandy McCutcheon has set his latest political thriller two years later, in a story of revenge orchestrated by six female teachers at Beslan, who take on the guise of black widows to turn the tables on the hostage-takers.

Devotion is more than the portrayal of a woman suffering from post-natal paralysis and grappling with the legacy of betrayal. Ffion Murphy’s impressive first novel alludes to landscapes mythological in scope, and explores the psychological complexities of intimacy, fidelity, sexuality, and language.

Besides being a bookseller, publisher and literary agent, Henry Hyde Champion (1859–1929) – the subject of this fascinating biography – was also, at various stages, an army officer, a journalist, and a socialist organiser. Born in England to a wealthy family with aristocratic roots, Champion turned his back on a conventional upper-class life after witnessing the appalling poverty of London’s East End. He embarked on what was to become a lifetime of activism on behalf of the poor and the working classes. Champion was a pioneer socialist of late nineteenth-century England and in this capacity, had dealings with such luminaries as George Bernard Shaw and the union leader John Burns. He was a key participant in the London Dock Strike of 1889, which was to prove a watershed for the labour movement, and was an early promoter of the eight-hour day.