June meeting

Grant Gillespie's debut novel isn't just called The Cuckoo Boy because it's about an awkward adopted child who wears down his parents and is implicated in the death of a sibling. Gillespie is attempting to re-energise the cliché by using it to ask questions about chance and intention, and good and evil.
Late on in the book, when most of the world has already made him a pariah, James, the strange hero, says: "Cuckoos lay their eggs in other bird's nests. The chicks look really silly. I've seen them in books … a big baby bird and a really small one trying to feed it. They have to catch even more worms than ever. The mother bird's babies die. They get pushed from the nest … Is that murder or is it an accident?"'

 'Hailed as the finest crime writer in Australia, award winner Peter Temple is now being recognized worldwide as a master of the genre. With The Broken Shore, he delivers his most powerful novel yet—a chilling tale of murder in a community where tensions over race, class, and politics have reached the boiling point. Shaken by a recent scrape with death, his physical and emotional scars still raw, detective Joe Cashin is posted away from the Homicide Squad to the quiet South Australian town where he grew up. But his hometown offers little in the way of a tranquil recovery; Cashin is soon embroiled in a highly publicized murder investigation. Prominent local businessman Charles Bourgoyne was brutally attacked in his own home, and three Aboriginal boys have become the lead suspects. When a shootout erupts between them and Cashin’s team, the truth itself becomes a moving target, and the evidence raises more questions than it answers. As the secrets of the Bourgoyne family begin to unfold, Cashin unravels a web of deceit while confronting his own haunted past. Racing to a riveting conclusion, The Broken Shore will transfix you at every turn.'