Jon Cleary Libri

It begins one rainy dawn: Orville Brame, prominent lawyer and president of the American Bar Association, is found shot through the heart, slumped in a monorail, silently circling downtown Sydney. The next day, the body of a security guard is fished out of the harbor. During the ensuing investigation, a talented rookie cop is ruthlessly gunned down. The trail Inspector Scobie Malone uncovers leads to betrayal; betrayal between brothers, when jealousy causes estrangement and murder; betrayal between countrymen, when cynicism triumphs over patriotism and sparks a multi-million-dollar international intrigue.

THE PHOENIX TREE is a novel about spies rather than a spy novel.In the closing days of World War II, two friends - Kenji Minato and Tom Akada, both serving in the United States Navy, are sent on a mission to Japan. Their urgent task as undercover agents is to identify members of the Peace Faction and to estimate its strength.Their wireless operator is Natasha Cairns - the widow of an English agent who becomes more than just a colleague to Tom as their love for each other grows.Amidst the dark terrors of the blanket bombing of Tokyo and the devastation of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, the two spies find out more about themselves than their mission. Each faces a struggle to come to terms with the war and, even more, with a dishonourable peace.The tensions of war and secrecy, of disaster and love, told by a master storyteller.'Completely entertaining' THE OBSERVER