Babylon South

Two murders in the same family take place, 20 years apart, in a Sydney community. Scobie Malone remembers the long-unsolved murder when he is called upon to investigate the new one, but there are complications. This is the sixth book in the Scobie Malone series, by award-winning author Jon Cleary.

In 1966 Sir Walter Springfellow, head of Australian intelligence, vanished mysteriously and without a trace.

As a young constable, Scobie Malone investigated the disappearance. Years later, some bones are found up hills which are presumed to be Sir Walter’s, and Detective Inspector Malone finds himself back on the case.

His first task is to break the news to Venetia Springfellow, Sir Walter’s glamorous widow, whose ruthless ambition has made the Springfellow Corporation a hugely successful company. Then comes news that there has been another death in the family, and one of the Springfellows is to be charged with murder.

Reviews

PRAISE FOR JON CLEARY:

'When the ruminants and the lucre-chasers are growing lichen on library shelves Jon Cleary will continue to be read'
LOS ANGELES TIMES

'Enough plot twists and conspiracy-making ingredients to satisfy the most demanding aficionado of the genre'
IRISH TIMES

‘The business of a novelist is to tell a story. Jon Cleary has that talent in abundance’ SUNDAY EXPRESS

‘The Malone stories come alive through their setting … Cleary’s writing is seamless and his plots imaginative and mature’ MIAMI HERALD

‘Cleary is a national literary institution… If Australia has a crime writer who deserves to be spoken of in the same breath as Ed McBain, Ruth Rendell, and P.D James, then it is Cleary’ SYDNEY MORNING HERALD

About the author

Jon Cleary, who died in July 2010, was the author of over fifty novels, including The High Commissioner, which was the first in a popular detective fiction series featuring Sydney Police Inspector Scobie Malone. In 1996 he was awarded the Inaugural Ned Kelly Award for his lifetime contribution to crime fiction in Australia. His last novel, FOUR-CORNERED CIRLCE, was published in 2007.