Charlie Thomas, born in a humpy camp in the 1920s, learns to fight early. He fights in the backblocks of Queensland during the Depression, and in the Middle East and the Pacific in World War Two.Charlie Thomas, decorated veteran, fights on in the cities and the country against racial prejudice, authority and his own weaknesses. He has to fight. White Australia tries to keep him on the losing side in the boxing tents, pubs and gaols.Charlie Thomas fights for education, justice, hope and love, to make his side the winning side.Peter Corris is one of Australia's most popular authors, and his Cliff Hardy detective stories have gained a large cult following.

Newcastle is a stretch for Cliff Hardy from Sydney's mean streets, and following up the mystery of Oscar Bach's death means he has to cover some unfamiliar and dangerous ground. Bach's death was classified as another tragic statistic from the Newcastle earthquake- but how could he have been seen alive five minutes afterwards?The quiet and unassuming Oscar was not all he seemed, and several people want to prevent Hardy from probing into his past. However, he finds support, and more, from policewoman Glen Withers and together they attempt to uncover the truth.

Private investigator Cliff Hardy is nothing if not versatile, and this collection of his cases sees him mixing with the good, the bad and the quirky. He tracks delinquent arsonists, hired killers and missing girlfriends, protects eye surgeons and radio announcers, solves old crimes and helps old underworld mates.

Will one man's loss be Hardy's gain?'I'd read about it in the papers, heard the radio reports and seen the TV coverage and then forgotten about it, the way you do with news stories.'A missing girl, drugs, yachts, the sex trade and a cold trail that leads from Sydney to Norfolk Island, Byron Bay and Coolangatta.The police suspect the father, Gerard Fonteyn OA, a wealthy businessman. But he's hired Cliff to find her, given him unlimited expenses and posted a $250,000 reward for information.Finally there's a break - an unconfirmed sighting of Juliana Fonteyn, alive and well. But as usual, nothing is straightforward. Various other players are in the game - and Cliff doesn't know the rules, or even what the game might be. He's determined to find out, and as the bodies mount up the danger to himself and to Juliana increases.

Australia's favourite PI, Cliff Hardy is back in a story set against the backdrop of a Federal election campaign.When journalist Louise Kramer hires Cliff Hardy to find Billie Marchant, Hardy heads for unfamiliar territory of the far south-western suburbs of Sydney. Billie claims to have information about media big-wheel Jonas Clement - the subject of an incriminating expose by Kramer. Clement doesn't want Billie found and Clement's enemies want to find her first. Hardy tracks Billie down, but saving Billie' means not only rescuing her, it means saving her from herself. Billie, ex-stripper, sometime hooker and druggie, is a handful. Hardy gets help from members of the Pacific Islander community and others, but the enemies close in and he is soon fighting on several different fronts. Clement and his chief rival, Barclay Greaves, have heavies in the field, and Hardy has to negotiate his way through their divided loyalties. Some negotiations involve cunning but...

A collection of ten classic Cliff Hardy short stories. The title story puts Hardy in the midst of a major drug deal after he is hired to seek out Annie, the daughter of a friend. Young Annie has fallen in with the wrong crowd and under the curse of heroin. Dealers, addicts and crooked cops make this a tense little story told in classic hardboiled style with a diabolically dangerous twist to the ending.

The indefatigable Cliff Hardy helps out an old police mate with an unresolved case, involving dodgy doctors, an illegitimate child and a violent confrontation.Frank Parker, retired senior policeman and Cliff Hardy's long time friend, has a problem. A case from early in his career involving two doctors, one of whom was convicted of hiring a hit man to kill the other and went to gaol for the crime, is coming back to haunt him. The convicted, now dead doctor may have been innocent, and Parker had been the lover of the beautiful Catherine Castiglione, the doctor's wife. Hardy tracks back through the now ageing names and faces, trying to tease out the truth. If the doctor was set up, who was responsible and why? Along the way Hardy encounters dodgy plastic surgeons, a broken-down ex-copper, a voyeuristic cripple and a hireling who wields a mean baseball bat. A charismatic player is the son of Catherine Castiglione, a super-bright charmer, who just may be Frank Parker's love...