Part of the Veenu bounty.

A favourite author and none of the Aussies I spoke to in the weekend seemed to know him.The author was born in Sydney in 1917 and I believe he is still alive and still writing as well.I will add this book to my collection as I would have most of his books especially the Scobie Malone series

I have finally read this book and I was disappointed in it. The characters didn't do anything for me as they had no depth. It felt like the author just threw in all the recent world events and had the two main characters involved in all of these events.
I afraid the author is either getting past it or should stick to his normal writing style. It is a pity as I consider Jon Cleary as one of my favourite authors. We do have to remember that he was born in 1917 and to be still writing is impressive.

Picked up at meetup at Mannequin. I've never read any Jon Cleary, but as a prolific Australian writer, it looks like I should!

Billed as 'a classic love story set against a world in turmoil' it was therefore no surprise that 9/11 and economic troubles showed up in the background of this book. However, that's really all they were - a backdrop to the relationship between our journalist and wannabe actress. Even the murder of the actress's flatmate turns out just to be a catalyst for getting her out of Sydney. So while I found the characters and the interplay between them interesting to a point, they weren't gripping enough to stop me caring that the rest of the story was so flat. I still rated the book quite highly, as I did enjoy it, but it was disappointing, as I had high expectations. I shall have to search out more Jon Cleary, though, as I suspect this is not the best work in his oeuvre.