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  • Published: 29 June 2009
  • ISBN: 9781742286303
  • Imprint: Penguin eBooks
  • Format: EBook
  • Pages: 320

Death and the Running Patterer



A curious murder mystery set in colonial Sydney

Sydney, 1828. All is not well.
One of the convict colony's soldiers has been murdered and Governor Ralph Darling is not pleased.
Reluctantly, he turns to Nicodemus Dunne for help. Dunne, a fallen Bow Street Runner now transported to Australia, makes his living as a running patterer, hawking news on the dusty streets. Only he has the detective skills required to chase down the ritual killer and stop the ever-bewildering series of gruesome murders that follow the first.
As he searches, Dunne joins forces with the entrancing seamstress Rachel Dormin and soon discovers that too many people, from the Governor down, have secrets worth killing for. When he gets too close to unveiling the murderer and to the secrets buried in his own past, even his life hangs in the balance.
Suspenseful, original and intriguing, Death and the Running Patterer will grip you from start to startling conclusion.

  • Published: 29 June 2009
  • ISBN: 9781742286303
  • Imprint: Penguin eBooks
  • Format: EBook
  • Pages: 320

About the author

Robin Adair

Veteran Sydney journalist Robin Adair has had a wide and colourful career at the Daily and Sunday Telegraphs, the Australian Financial Review and the ABC. For many years he reflected on the lighter side of life in a humorous column for the Australian Women's Weekly. He has been a lifelong student of early colonial history, especially police, pubs, crime and punishment. One of his ancestors was an early Sydney police superintendent; he believes another was a London judge who sent many convicts to Australia. His first novel, Death and the Running Patterer, won the inaugural Penguin's Most Wanted competition for new Australian crime fiction and was short-listed in the Best First Fiction category of the 2010 Ned Kelly Awards. His second novel is The Ghost of Waterloo.

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