Soft Target

It’s the 1980s in Sydney, Australia, and Noakes, the hard-bitten, movie-obsessed romantic of John Baxter’s first crime novel BONDI BLUES, is in trouble again. This time he’s lost his temper with the English man and wife who conned him out of his thriving limo service. (“I called it justice; the law preferred Grievous Bodily Harm.”) Bailed out by an old friend, he finds himself guarding the body of Lily Tyler, beautiful young wife of newspaper magnate Osbert Tyler. The job takes him from the mansions of Long Island to the outback of New South Wales, pitting him against Samoan legbreakers, boxing kangaroos, crooked Hong Kong coppers, and – most dangerous of all – the girl he’s supposed to protect.