DEATH HAS A THOUSAND DOORS

DEATH HAS A THOUSAND DOORS is set in the little-known Pyrenean country of Andorra in the late 1990s. Family complications abound. Jane Burns, an Australian accountant, is a recovering alcoholic with a troubled past. When she receives a letter inviting her to visit Andorra for the winding-up of her grandfather's multi-million dollar trust, she jumps at the opportunity to leave her humdrum life and troubles behind. She expects to stay with her half-sister, Pearl, a photo journalist who moved to Andorra to escape an abusive marriage, but on her arrival Pearl is missing without explanation. The only clue to her whereabouts is an unlikely welcoming gift to Jane of a bottle of champagne. Jane and Pearl's father, Charles, an aloof historian, becomes Jane's ally in the search for Pearl. In a twisted web starting from the founding of the family trust after the Second World War, and involving financial misdoings, kidnapping and tobacco-smuggling, Jane and Charles try to discover which threads will lead them to Pearl, and which are simply the detritus of her daily life as an investigative journalist. On the way, Jane meets a sympathetic village policeman. She also meets Pearl's lover, a prominent Andorran politician. But are these two men helping or hindering the investigation? To BUYCLICK here.. Death Has A Thousand Doors

PARANOIA (THE WALK AND TALK WITH ANGELA)

PARANOIA (The Walk and Talk with Angela) shows a man of solitary habits and a background of family disruption and multiple relationships. Disturbed by his girlfriend, Angela, who calls him "oblivious", he reflects on his past life, focusing on many people and topics that he previously ignored. He acknowledges his faults and selfishness, and finds cause to give thanks to all who have played any part in his life, including mother earth and the universe itself. It is through the mea culpa of his narrative that a picture emerges of his past empty and unhappy life. Gradually, this becomes intertwined with unusual events in his present life, meetings with new acquaintances and their stories, and a high-minded plot to expose and frustrate the alleged war-mongering plans of North Korea and end the screams of torture victims in "the camps". To BUYCLICK here.. Paranoia (The Walk and Talk with Angela)

A Misted Mirror

Gillian Jones wrote A MISTED MIRROR as a response to her late husband Keith Jones's illness with Parkinson's Disease and to his poetry. Structured around the poetry, the novel imagines and explores the life together of a fictional couple, Sarah and David, with flashbacks to before they met, and chronicles David's later decline with Parkinson's Disease and dementia. Early readers have found it a powerful and compelling story, of a young man sowing wild oats in Africa, confronting his demons in the hothouse of a London arts community, and finding pleasure and satisfaction in a second marriage, family and career. The results of his illness come as a heart-rending contrast but mitigated by a generous late flowering of his poetry. To BUYCLICK here.. A Misted Mirror

• Joint-Winner, International Proverse Prize (2010)