Mona

Iranian terrorist Shalah Muhammad, long time manager of suicide bombers, and his neurotic Russian American apprentice, Sarah Kohmsky, hire a Russian mafia boss, Uncle Sergey, and his evil nuclear scientist, Turgo, to hit Ground Zero on the anniversary of 9/11. Hearing of the plan from the CIA, but estranged from her policing commissioner, New York Mayor Ruth Newberg asks Professor Larry Maciver, world renowned criminologist, for help. While the terrorists quietly orchestrate their attack, the drama unfolds as a battle between MacIver the careful scientist, and the impatient Buck Buick, Newark cop and former Marine bomb squad specialist. NYC politics doesn't help matters either, nor does the FBI when it embarks on sting operations that lead to CIA renditions and revelations of unwarranted surveillance. Will it be a drone, a missile, or a repeat of the 9/11 bombings? Das, Maciver's geeky assistant, thinks he has the answer. Can they save NYC or must it save itself? Predictably, things end up very ugly.

Lizzie Malley entertains her powerful and kinky clients (the Mayor of Melbourne, an Aussie rules hero, a famous Queens Counsel) in her Winnebago parked on the old Williamstown Ferry. Her father Sandy is the union boss on the wharf, and her Mom, Babs, rules the roost from her kitchen. When shaven and disfigured bodies pop up in the Yarra beside the ferry, tightly bound Paul Striker of CID, is confronted with the web of illegalities that pervades Williamstown, the Malley family with its ties to chairman of the Australian communist party, Lennie Stalinsky, and their protector the strange Father Zappia. Pandemonium breaks out when Lizzie announces that she and her uncle Bobby the ferry driver, whose toe was cut off when he was a little boy, plan to elope, and the body of Stalinsky’s wife Monie is fished out of the Yarra. Then there is Babs, under the spell of the strange Father Zappia, who tries to solve her own mystery of St. Robert’s toe. Things come to a head when Babs throws Lizzie and Bobby a send-off party, and engages a Burl Ives impersonator for entertainment. In good Aussie style all hell breaks loose and both mysteries are solved, sort of.

Holy Water is a work of humorous fiction, suitable for all readers due to its tasteful use of innuendo over crude language. A satirical tale of religion, business and family ties, we meet Alphonso when he is at the peak of his career as a drug lord in his home country of Mexico. After infiltrating the Vatican and gaining a monopoly on the titular Holy Water, the novel turns surreal as a new Pope, courtesy of Alphonso, colludes in many crazy ventures not the least is the production and distribution of Holy Water and the purchase of a university through which drug money is laundered. But there's lots more. Alphonso's son turns out to be LGBTQ and his wife a worshipper of Gloria Steinem. And there's still more. This is a well written and humorous comedy story that will suit fans of surreal plot twists and anarchistic humor. Every line is well placed to deliver humor, with zippy dialogue, puns, and in-jokes that only grow in mirth as the reading experience continues.

The opening story of MONA, inspired by the Museum of Old and New Art located in Hobart, Tasmania, sets the stage for this collection of short stories that adds an Australian flavor to Colin Heston's acclaimed The Tommie Felon Show. As one reviewer of that collection noted "...vivid and real, some of the stories seem to jump out of the pages... engaging, hilarious, unique... a commentary on human desires, shortcomings and the society we live in.... one has to look beyond the words and the events in these stories to really appreciate them." (Readers' Favorite). The stories range across many styles, prose poems, jottings that are almost aphorisms, classic stories of human emotion and the contradictions of human existence, dystopian themes and settings, all engaging, never dull. The stories in this volume are: 1. MONA. 2. The Tommie Felon Show. 3. Easter Story. 4. Veggies. 5. Wombattered. 6. Death at the Y. 7. Seductio ad absurdum. 8. Head's Up 9. Parodisiac. 10. A Meeting of Relative. 11. Leap of Faith. 12. Civilization. 13. Deconstruction. 14. Fake Truth. 15. Secret of the Sand. 16. Mixed Blessings. 17. Rounding Error.

In tis coming of age story, teen Chooka grows up in the weird world of 1950s Aussie pub life. When his alcoholic dad dies, he searches for his identity, and that of his shadowy underage girlfriend, Iris. Captivated by the pub's many crazy customers and their raucous stories, Chooka becomes a boozer just like them. But Iris, after a miscarriage, disappears and Chooka sets out on a search that takes him to foreign places including Melbourne university and Vietnam. The search ends in a Melbourne pub, where they start over, but this time there's a different ending. "…a brilliant, unforgettable book about real people…a sensitive, touching and poignant story." - Reader's favourite

In the first half of the 20th century, before fast foods (except for fish and chips) appeared in Australia, home cooking, family dinners and cut lunches ruled the day. Mothers spent their time in the kitchen and, except for a brief period during World War II, they stayed there. They inherited recipes from their own mothers, and shared them as well with relatives and friends. Although many of the recipes and cooking practices were typically English, many came from the Irish, the Chinese who tried their luck in the gold fields in the 1850s, and after World War II, from European immigrants, especially Italian and Greek. Pub lunches led the way in the latter part of the 20th century, followed by take-out restaurants, coffee shops, and restaurants of almost any cultural origin. Today in the 21st century, mothers and fathers go out to work, there are ready made meals available in supermarkets, and going out to a pub for lunch or dinner is no big deal. This cookbook revives the old recipes of the past, the simple tastes of the home made meat pie or sausage roll, the wonderful pastries, cookies, slices and cakes that no modern restaurant or bakery can ever match. For those older readers who no longer cook for themselves, this book will help resurrect for your children or grandchildren what home cooking was all about. The true joys of cooking!