Peter Temple books in order

Anne Carson: fifteen, beautiful, wayward. Abducted.

The rich Carsons have closed ranks and summoned Frank Calder, subject to strict instructions. This is not the first kidnapping in the Carson family and hard lessons have been learned.

But are the two events connected? And is greed the motivation? Revenge? Or could it be something else? To find out, Frank Calder must go beyond his brief.

And his every step into the darkness may end a girl's life.

'When men in police uniforms came to execute me on the roadside, beside dark fields, it was a definite sign that my new life was over.' 

A regular at the local pub, a mainstay of the footy team, Mac Faraday is a man with a past living the quiet life of a country blacksmith. But when his best friend Ned Lowey is found hanged, Mac - who has learned the hard way never to accept things at face value - isn't convinced he committed suicide and starts asking questions. 

Why did Ned keep press cuttings about the skeleton of a girl found in an old mine shaft? What was he doing at Kinross Hall, the local detention centre for juvenile girls? Who was the beaten girl found naked beside a lonely road? 

As Mac's search for answers pushes deeper into the past, it resurrects the terrifying spectre of what he calls his 'old life', forcing him to turn to long-discarded skills not only to discover why his best friend died, but also to save his own life.

John Anselm is a struggling intelligence dealer whose business is information, Con Niemand is a tough ex-mercenary whose business is surviving, and Caroline Wishart is an exposé journalist whose business until now has been the sex lives of British politicians. Their paths collide when they all stumble across a secret terrible enough to destroy lives and topple governments.

Against his will, Anselm is plunged into a world of violence, betrayal, and death. He must break out of his anesthetized life and pit himself against forces that he does not understand, forces determined to rebury an atrocity that threatens reputations and lives across the globe, while Niemand is hunted across two continents by people he doesn’t know.

NB: This book is also known as In the Evil Day.

Shaken by a scrape with death, big-city detective Joe Cashin is posted away from the Homicide Squad to the quiet town on the South Australian coast where he grew up. Carrying physical scars and more than a little guilt, he spends his time playing the country cop, walking his dogs, and thinking about how it all was before. 

But when a prominent local is attacked in his own home and left for dead, Cashin is thrust into what becomes a murder investigation. The evidence points to three boys from the nearby aboriginal community—everyone seems to want to blame them. Cashin is unconvinced, and soon begins to see the outlines of something far more terrible than a burglary gone wrong.

Inspector Stephen Villani, head of homicide in Melbourne, Australia, has a full agenda: a murdered woman in a penthouse apartment, three men butchered in a sadistic rampage, a tattoo-faced drug dealer corrupting his rebellious daughter, a crumbling marriage. 

As these seemingly unrelated events begin to unfold, Villani finds himself immersed in an unfamiliar world of political scandal and ethical ambiguity. He must navigate the inept bureaucracy that is the police department, all the while maintaining a solid front and trying to keep the press, his family, and his own past from breaking him completely. With each twist and every turn of this taut crime novel, Villani is forced to question whom he can trust.

Peter Temple started publishing novels late, when he was 50, but then he got cracking. He wrote nine novels in 13 years. Along the way he wrote screenplays, stories, dozens of reviews. When he died in March 2018, there was an unfinished Jack Irish novel in his drawer. It is included in The Red Hand, and it reveals the master at the peak of his powers. The Red Hand also includes the screenplay of Valentine’s Day, an improbably delightful story about an ailing country football club, which in 2007 was adapted for television by the ABC. Also included are his short fiction, his reflections on the Australian idiom, a handful of autobiographical fragments, and a selection of his brilliant book reviews.

Melbourne in winter. Rain. Wind. Pubs. Beer. Sex. Corruption. Murder.

A phone message from ex-client Danny McKillop doesn’t ring any bells for Jack Irish. Life is hard enough without having to dredge up old problems: his beloved football team continues to lose, the odds on his latest plunge at the track seem far too long and he’s still cooking for one.

But then Danny turns up dead and Jack has to take a walk back into the dark and dangerous past.

Jack Irish - lawyer, gambler, part-time cabinetmaker, finder of missing people - is recovering from a foray into the criminal underworld when he agrees to look for the son of an old workmate of his father's. It's an offer he soon has cause to regret, as the trail of Gary Connors leads him into the world of Steven Levesque, millionaire and political kingmaker. The more Jack learns about Levesque's powerful corporation, the more convinced he becomes that at its heart lies a secret. What he's destined to find out is just how deadly that secret is...

It takes a lot to rattle Jack Irish but, as Melbourne descends into a cold, wet winter, his mood is on the same trajectory. The woman in Jack’s life has reconnected with an old flame. He has gambled and lost massively and seen a champion horse put down. It’s not surprising that Jack’s mind is not fully on the job he’s being paid to do: find Robbie Colburne, occasional barman. 

But when Jack does get serious, he finds the freelance drink-dispenser is of great interest to some powerful people, people with very bad habits and a distinct lack of respect for the criminal justice system…Any lapse in concentration could prove fatal.

Jack Irish-gambler, cook and cabinetmaker, finder of people who don't want to be found-has a new job, hunting for evidence that might save the beautiful sculptor Sarah Longmore from a murder rap. Jack soon discovers there was nothing straightforward about Mickey Franklin's death, and falls headlong into a world of shady deals, sexual secrets and country rednecks.

On a lazy summer morning, ageing author Vincent Duncan takes an unsettling phone call from his literary agent. Peter Temple indulges his humorous side in this scathingly brilliant portrayal of a writer past his peak.

The Broken Shore: A convalescing homicide detective returns to his hometown only to find his recovery interrupted by a case that leaves him standing alone, fighting against corruption and prejudice. In the 

Evil Day: Five people lie dead on the floor of a fortified Johannesburg mansion. In his hands the solitary survivor holds his death warrant. Powerful men - and powerful nations will kill to keep to keep the video tape in Con Niemand's grasp buried. The tape and the man must be erased...

An Iron Rose: When country blacksmith Mac Farraday's best friend is found hanging, the assumption is he's committed suicide. But Mac is far from convinced: he's a man who has learned - the hard way - never to accept things at face value.