Dimensions
138 x 206 x 20mm
Quentin Tarantino meets Shane Maloney in this darkly comic, crime debut set in the tough, unforgiving world of Sydney's second-hand book trade.
Jack Susko is trying for a quiet life in his second-hand bookshop - the business is more tin mine than gold mine, but that's okay - it's his and, what's more, it means he has no cares apart from an almost complete lack of income; no responsibility for anyone apart from his cat.
But when wealthy Double Bay businessman Hammond Kasprowicz hires Jack to locate some poetry books for him, that something looks closer to nothing when compared to the Kasprowicz fortune. Dazzled, Jack makes a play for the businessman's beautiful divorcee daughter, Annabelle. Within a week, he's embroiled in a murder investigation: the author of the books Jack has been hired to locate is found shot dead in his Potts Point apartment. He also happens to be Hammond Kasprowicz's estranged brother. Then Hammond Kasprowicz goes missing, too. Jack's left with the sexy daughter who hates her father, a jealous cousin, a violent ex-husband, and a corrupt cop, all looking to cash in on the situation.
A Deadly Business is the first Jack Susko novel, establishing a crime-novel antihero who's not a detective and whose motives aren't always pure - but he's sure-as-hell funny.