Scobie Malone

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.

A nun is found murdered on the steps of the Quality Couch, Sydney’s most expensive house of ill repute. She is Sister Mary Magdalene, an idealistic young woman who previously had worked at a mission in Nicaragua. Detective Inspector Scobie Malone, that most human of cops, picks up the trail when he discovers that her real name was Teresa Hourigan - the illegitimate granddaughter of Fingal Hourigan, one of Australia’s most powerful businessmen, who is currently entertaining some rich contras at his palatial home. The case leads Malone deep into Hourigan’s murky past and threatens to expose the secret the old man has kept since 1929....

In 1966 Sire 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 in the hills which are presumed to be Sir Walter’s, and Detective Inspector Malone finds himself back on the case. Then comes news that there has been another death in the family, and one of the Springfellows is to be charged with murder.

A young woman named Mardi Jack is killed by a sniper’s bullet in a Sydney apartment apparently owned by a wealthy businessman, Boru O’Brien, who has ties to seedy goings-on and to the prime minister’s wife. O’Brien, the real target of the assassin, had been a cadet with Detective Inspector Scobie Malone two decades earlier, and after Jim Knoble, another police academy classmate, is also professionally shot, the mantle falls to Malone to investigate the case. Forced into hiding and afraid for the safety of his family, Malone must find a psychopathic murderer before he too is stopped by a killer’s bullet.

In the town of Collamundra, Australia, the corpse of Japanese farm manager, Kenji Sagawa, is found in one of his cotton mill’s threshing machines. The prosperity that his company had brought to the small town had also engendered racial tension, and Detective Inspector Scobie Malone of the Sydney Police Department is called in to investigate - hardly a vacation. The local corrupt government and law enforcement resent him, and the Aborigine population gets ever more restless.

In the heat of an Australian summer, Inspector Scobie Malone of the New South Wales police finds the body of a promising informer, Scungy Grime, floating face down in his family's backyard swimming pool. Scobie is investigating Sydney’s major drug-dealing operation, and Grime's murder is a clear warning. Malone's family is put under police protection - a nightmare for Scobie, who had always been able to separate his professional obligations from his home life.

When local solicitor Will Rockne is found in his car by his wife - shot through the head - it seems a baffling and motiveless murder. However, Scobie Malone, newly assigned to the case, has his suspicions. Despite his daughter Claire's shy romance with young Jason Rockne, Scobie and his wife Lisa's encounters with Will and Olive Rockne at school functions have always been a little disconcerting.... Will had been determined to convince them that he was more than just a suburban lawyer.

When the Sydney police minister's son falls 20 floors to his death, the politics of murder ripple the city like a boulder into a pool. Caught in the wash is Detective Inspector Scobie Malone, as he uncovers an elaborate financial scheme, a series of cold-blooded precision killings, and layers of political intrigue. Scobie thinks he is immune to politics, but he is soon engulfed in its consequences.

It begins one rainy dawn: Orville Brame, prominent lawyer and president of the American Bar Association, is found shot through the heart, slumped in a monorail, silently circling downtown Sydney. The next day, the body of a security guard is fished out of the harbor. During the ensuing investigation, a talented rookie cop is ruthlessly gunned down. The trail Inspector Scobie Malone uncovers leads to betrayal - betrayal between brothers and betrayal between countrymen.

As Sydney prepares for its grand role as host of the next Olympic Games, Scobie Malone is confronted with solving a scam that does nothing for the city's image. Lurking beneath a facade of respectability, illicit deals are being struck and money from Hong Kong is being banked in large quantities. But whose money is it, and where is it really from?

It's a special occasion Down Under and the notoriously frugal Inspector Malone is taking his family to dinner at one of Sydney's finest Chinese restaurants. But their gala turns grisly when a masked assassin enters and guns down three men at a nearby table. The ante goes up when Scobie discovers that one victim was an investor in Olympic Tower, a multimillion-dollar luxury project in downtown Sydney, originally intended as posh housing for the VIPs during the 2000 Olympic Games. With construction stalled by union strife and an economic slump, the Olympic Tower is still an empty shell - or is it a deadly shell game?

Australian detective Scobie Malone is asked to investigate what seems like an easy case: Norma Glaze has been strangled in her bedroom and her husband Ron has disappeared. What appears cut-and-dry on the surface is complicated by the fact that the night before involved a one-night stand and a killer with a twisted right hand. Four years later, Malone finds and arrests Ron Glaze in a bush town, but the man insists he is innocent even as the evidence makes his conviction in court a cinch.

Scobie Malone's job as a homicide cop is to try to keep murder at bay. His job as a father is to keep his family safe. Now, as the eyes of the world are turning toward his city, both of Malone's careers are in serious jeopardy. An important politician is murdered in high-profile public as his nation rushes toward center stage in the international arena. The assassination is clean and professional - and senseless on the surface. Malone knows, however, that violent death is sometimes politics' strangest and darkest bedfellow.

The Hotel Southern Savoy has become the reluctant host to two corpses on a single night - and homicide inspector Scobie Malone knows this investigation will be a nightmare from the moment he arrives. The first victim was the wife of the American ambassador, a slaying that will certainly have international repercussions - and worse, if the lady's dark secrets are ever revealed. But it's the second murder that strikes straight at Malone's heart. The dead man was the husband of a woman from Malone's past, a brief love long over but never forgotten.

The time has come for Scobie Malone to leave the homicide and serial offenders unit of the Sydney police, and his last investigation could be the most bizarre case ever to cross his desk. Called in when a housemaid is found dead in a dot-com millionaire's penthouse, Malone suspects he's dealing with a kidnapping gone wrong. In fact, it couldn't have gone more wrong.