The Big Ask

Even in the political wilderness, hope springs eternal for the Honourable Murray Whelan MP. He has found true love, with the salty-tongued Lyndal Luscombe, and there is a baby on the way. But dreams of domestic bliss are shattered when a jail fugitive kills his beloved, then eludes recapture.

Obsessed and bitter, Murray refuses to let the matter lie. When a chance encounter at a beach resort sets him on the killer's trail, he finds himself in very deep water indeed. In a world of abalone poaching, shady restaurateurs, tree-hugging ferals and teenage romance, you can depend on Murray Whelan to stumble upon Something Fishy.

Murray Whelan's sixth adventure.

Now pushing fifty, Murray is spinning his wheels in Parliament: a toothless cog in a stalled political machine. The millennium is coming but the prospect of Labor regaining power is utterly remote.

But when the remains of a long-dead union official are found in dried-up Lake Nillahcootie, Murray soon gets sucked into murky waters. For a start, it seems that his old mate Charlie Talbot was implicated. But Charlie has just dropped dead of a coronary occlusion in the dining room of the Mildura Grand Hotel, leaving a grieving widow and a lot of unanswered questions.

The press is sniffing around and Labor's enemies are lining up for a free kick. And then there's the blackmail attempt. And as if that wasn't enough there's an ALP preselection brawl arcing up.

Murray Whelan, political minder, is world-weary, terminally horny and addicted to cigarettes.

On a sultry Melbourne summer night, while Murray is in the Botanic Gardens tasting Salina Fleet's apricot lips, a dead artist is being fished from the ornamental moat outside the art gallery. Whelan goes looking for the big picture among the culture vultures of Melbourne's art world and quickly learns there is nothing abstract about a loaded gun.

A romantic comedy and drop-dead thriller, The Brush-Off mixes high art with low blows.

The first Murray Whelan adventure, with an introduction by Lindsay Tanner.

The fiddle at the Pacific Pastoral meat-packing works was a nice little earner for all concerned until Herb Gardiner reported finding a body in number 3 chiller. An accident, of course, but just the excuse a devious political operator might grab to stir up trouble with the unions.

Enter Murray Whelan, minder, fixer and general dogsbody for the Minister of Industry. Between playing of party factions and pursuing the kohl-eyed Ayisha, it's all in a day's work for Murray to hose down the situation at Pacific Pastoral. Then the lairy V8 turns up. And after that, it gets personal.

Because don't you just hate it when somebody tries to kill you and you don't know who or why?

Shane Maloney is one of Australia's most popular novelists. His award-winning and much-loved Murray Whelan series has been published around the world. In 1996 The Brush-Off won the Ned Kelly Prize for Crime Fiction. In 2004 Stiff and The Brush-Off were made into telemovies, starring David Wenham as Murray Whelan. In 2009 Shane Maloney was presented with the Crime Writers' Association of Australia Lifetime Achievement Award.

Lindsay Tanner is a former federal Finance Minister and author of several books who has been a member of the Victorian branch of the Labor Party for over thirty-five years and lived to tell the tale.

'Hilarious...witty, controversial, intelligent.' Herald Sun

'Fast-paced, fresh, unerringly funny.' Houston Chronicle

'Read it, you'll love it.' Courier-Mail

'Funny and gripping.' Rolling Stone

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