Monday I kept to myself. They were packing up and if I called in to say goodbye to Mummy, there was a chance he’d want a hand. So I checked out a bit more of Narooma, revisited Mystery Bay then I headed for Terrigal first thing Tuesday morning. Driving back, the realisation began to sink in that although I’d had a good time in Narooma, I’d given the plastic fantastic a horrible nudge on CDs, booze and T-shirts. I still hadn’t figured out the new book either.
I got home safe and sound to find a couple of fan letters had poured in. One was from a really devoted fan who writes often, called The Manager, Banking Operations. He always ends his letters with the same sentence: ‘If you cannot meet this requirement, please contact us on the telephone number above.’ The other was from the librarian in a Queensland gaol. If I didn’t send him some books the prisoners were going to kill him. I gave this letter a lot of thought. If I withheld the books and the inmates murdered him, maybe I could plagiarise Agatha Christie’s Death in the Library. Death in the Prison Library? But I couldn’t do it. Even though I try not to bag other authors, Agatha Christie’s books are worse than those pies at Ulladulla. I sent a box of books to the gaol and decided to call my next potboiler Mystery Bay Blues. And forget Barbara. Give me enough of those pills that can make a starving awther write faster than a speeding bullet, and I could be the next Jack Kerouac.
October 2005
EXCERPT FROM CRIME SCENE CESSNOCK
Robert G. Barrett
Les is back and on the detox …
All it took was a summer’s day and a flat tyre on his pushbike, and Les is out on bail and on the run from a gun-happy street gang intent on a drive-by. So, with Warren’s help, Les Norton defendant becomes Len Gordon film director, safely ensconced at the ultra-swish Opal Springs Health Resort till Eddie can sort things out back in Sydney.
Unfortunately, the first thing Les finds on arrival is motivational guru Alexander Holden dead at the front gate. Then, before you can say soya beans with tahini and lime dressing, the cops arrive and Les is up to his neck in the land of a thousand acronyms, fighting off steroid-happy body-builders, sex-crazed socialites, violent greyhound owners — and, worst of all, caffeine withdrawals — while at the same time matching wits with the four acrimonious writers-in-residence. Was Alexander Holden murdered? Or was it an accident? Find out in the gripping climax and food fight when all is revealed — in the library.
Robert G. Barrett’s latest Les Norton adventure, Crime Scene Cessnock, set in New South Wales’ beautiful Pokolbin Valley, is a whodunnit with a difference, and proves once again why Barrett is, to quote the Australian newspaper, the king of popular fiction.
Crime Scene Cessnock Available Now
EXCERPT FROM THE WIND AND THE MONKEY
Robert G. Barrett
A week’s holiday in Shoal Bay, courtesy of Price Galese. All Les had to do was help Eddie Salita get rid of a crooked cop. Why not? Les always wanted to visit Port Stephens. And nobody liked Fishcake Fishbyrne that much anyway.
The first night in town, Les gets arrested by the federal police then collared by a drug-crazed, feminist author. The hit turned out to be a complete nightmare. Next thing, it’s a night drive into Newcastle with Eddie to sort out a team of local heavies.
Somehow in the middle of all this Les meets Digger. Sweet Christian girl from The Church of the Peaceful Sea. Digger was a fiery little enigma wrapped in a burning secret. Digger found God. Les found Elvis. Together they journeyed to Virgin Island, discovered love and solved a mystery.
EXCERPT FROM GOODOO GOODOO
Robert G. Barrett
Wolfman Les — Rock’n’Roll DJ.
Another good idea down the gurgler …
What should have been a quick gig on a radio station followed by a whitewater rafting holiday in Cairns finishes up a mud-soaked four-wheel drive trip to Cooktown with Norton looking for two missing scuba divers! The army, the air force and half the Queensland water police couldn’t find the two missing divers. So what chance does Les have?
Along the way Les meets a kooky little space cadet who spends her time chasing UFOs and predicting the future; man-eating crocodiles; heat and humidity; and strangers everywhere out for his blood. Then, in a place of indescribable beauty, he uncovers unimaginable terror …
From FM radio to FN Queensland, Goodoo Goodoo is a roller-coaster ride of thrills and spills and shows once again why Robert G. Barrett is one of Australia’s most popular contemporary authors.
Goodoo Goodoo Available Now
EXCERPT FROM MUD CRAB BOOGIE
Robert G. Barrett
Les caught the DJ’s eye. ‘Hey mate,’ he said. ‘If I give you ten bucks, will you play two songs for me?’
‘Mate,’ replied the DJ. ‘For ten bucks, I’ll play you Tiny Tim singing A Pub With No Beer in Vietnamese.’
Look out Wagga Wagga, Les Norton’s in town and he feels like dancing.
Extreme Polo. The wildest game on water. That’s what it said on TV. All Les had to do was drive down to Wagga Wagga for an old mate who owed him a favour, Neville (Nizegy) Nixon, and pick up the Murrumbidgee Mud Crabs. Then keep them at Coogee till they played the Sydney Sea Snakes in the grand final at Homebush Aquatic Centre. And naturally there would be a giant earn in it for him. Why not? thought Les, he had the week off from work.
Next thing, Norton was on his way to the Riverina to meet the locals, the lovelies and oogie, oogie, oogie — do the Mud Crab Boogie.
Mud Crab Boogie Available Now
About the Author
Robert G. Barrett was raised in Sydney’s Bondi where he worked mainly as a butcher. After thirty years he moved to Terrigal on the Central Coast of New South Wales. Robert has appeared in a number of films and TV commercials but prefers to concentrate on a career as a writer. He is the author of twenty-one books, including Goodoo Goodoo, Leaving Bondi, The Ultimate Aphrodisiac, Mystery Bay Blues, Rosa-Marie’s Baby and Crime Scene Cessnock.
* * *
To find out more about Bob and his books
visit these websites:
www.robertgbarrett.net.au
or
www.harpercollins.com.au/robertgbarrett
* * *
Books by Robert G. Barrett
So What Do You Reckon?
Mud Crab Boogie
Goodoo Goodoo
The Wind and the Monkey
Leaving Bondi
Mystery Bay Blues
Copyright
AM I EVER GONNA SEE YOUR FACE AGAIN (D NEESON, J BREWSTER, R BREWSTER) © 1976 Lyrics reproduced with kind permission by J Albert & Son Pty Ltd.
‘The Overlander Trail’, Roy Darling © Copyright Boosey & Hawkes Pty Ltd. Reproduced by permission.
HarperCollinsPublishers
First published in Australia in 2002
This edition published in 2014
by HarperCollinsPublishers Pty Limited
ABN 36 009 913 517
A member of the HarperCollinsPublishers (Australia) Pty Limited Group
www.harpercollins.com.au
Copyright © Psycho Possum Productions Pty Ltd 2002
The right of Robert G. Barrett to be identified as the moral rights author of this work has been asserted by him in accordance with the Copyright Amendment (Moral Rights) Act 2000 (Cth).
This book is copyright.
Apart from any fair dealing for the purposes of private study, research, criticism or review, as permitted under the Copyright Act, no part may be reproduced by any process without written permission.
Inquiries should be addressed to the publishers.
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SA
National Library of Australia Cataloguing-in-Publication data:
Barrett, Robert G.
The ultimate aphrodisiac.
ISBN 0 7322 7168 1 (pbk.)
ISBN 978 1 4607 0381 6 (epub)
1. Islands – Micronesia (Federated States) – Fiction.
2. Journalists – Fiction. 3. World War III – Fiction.
I. Title
A823.3
Cover illustration by Mark Vesey
Cover design by Darian Causby, HarperCollins Design Studio
The Ultimate Aphrodisiac Page 44