Gossip From the Forest

Inspired by a true incident that took place in Australia in 1984, this powerful and disturbing novel focuses on Rudi Kabbel, a survivor of Nazi-occupied Belorussia, and Terry Delaney, a young Australian rugby player who falls in love with Kabbel's daughter. With the optimism and innocence of those unscathed by war, Delaney gropes to understand Kabbel's outlook on life. All too slowly he grasps the implications of Kabbel's vision, too late to averts its tragic consequences.

Sydney, 1942, and in a nation threatened by a Japanese invasion, with husbands absent and sleek GIs present, a spirit of recklessness takes hold. Frank Darragh, an innocent young curate, finds the line between saving others' souls and losing his own begins to blur as he beomes entangled with a menage a trois and dangerously attracted to a married woman whose husband is a POW, who confesses that she has been tempted by a charismatic American sergeant. Before Father Darragh can dissuade her, she is murdered. Suspecting the sergeant, yet believing he might save his soul, Darragh gets drawn ever further into a morass his complacent superiors deplore and towards a showdown that could cost him his life.

In the waning years of the Edwardian era, a group of gentlemen wait out a raging blizzard in the perpetual darkness of the Antarctic winter, poised for a strike at the South Pole. As the storm lifts, a new challenge faces Captain Sir Eugene Stewart - to discover which of his twenty-five carefully chosen men has become a murderer. The quest for adventure has become a quest for justice.

In wartime Sydney, young Daniel Jordan's life is dominated by two conflicting influences: the religion he imbibes at school and the communism of his terrifying neighbour, the 'Comrade'.  Through Daniel's often amusingly confused view of the adult world, Thomas Keneally deftly explores the effects of rigid adherence to dogma and the fine line between innocence and guilt.

In 1915, two spirited Australian sisters join the war effort as nurses, escaping the confines of their father's dairy farm and carrying a guilty secret with them. Used to tending the sick as they are, nothing could have prepared them for what they confront, first in the Dardanelles, then on the Western Front.Yet amid the carnage, Naomi and Sally Durance become the friends they never were at home and find themselves courageous in the face of extreme danger, as well as the hostility they encounter from some on their own side. There is great bravery, humour and compassion, too, and the inspiring example of some remarkable women. And in France, where Naomi nurses in a hospital set up by the eccentric Lady Tarlton while Sally works in a casualty clearing station, each meets an exceptional man: the kind of men for whom they might give up some of their precious independence - if only they all survive.At once vast in scope and extraordinarily intimate, The Daughters of Mars brings the First World War to vivid, concrete life from an unusual perspective. A searing and profoundly moving tale, it pays tribute to the men and women who voluntarily risked their lives for peace.

In 1943, when Grace and Leo Waterhouse married in Australia, they were part of a young generation ready to sacrifice themselves to win the war, while being confident they would survive. Sixty years on, as Grace recounts what happened to her doomed hero, she can say what she suspected then: that for many men, bravery is its own end. The tale she tells is one of great love, lost innocence, a charismatic but unstable Irish commander, dashing undercover missions against the Japanese in Singapore, and - in her eyes - reckless, foolhardy exploits. As fresh details continue to emerge, Grace is forced to keep revising her picture of what happened to Leo and his fellow commandoes - until she learns about the final piece in the jigsaw, and an ultimate betrayal. As absorbing as it is thought-provoking, this timely novel poses unsettling questions about what drives men to battle and heroic deeds, and movingly conveys the life-long effect on those who survive them.

In the shadow of Auschwitz, a flamboyant German industrialist defied the SS and risked his life to protect Jews in Nazi-occupied Poland. His name was Oskar Schindler.Thomas Keneally's unforgettable novel recreates the story of this unlikely angel of mercy, and of the people he saved. Winner of the Booker Prize in 1982, it was subsequently dramatised as the Oscar-winning film Schindler's List.'Keneally has done marvellous justice to a marvellous story' THE SUNDAY TIMES'Brilliantly detailed, moving, powerful and gripping' THE TIMES