Robert George Barrett Books in Order

Queensland newcomer Les Norton takes a job as a bouncer at an illegal Kings Cross casino. His introduction to Sydney brings encounters with gamblers, con artists, bookmakers, sex workers, and killers operating between Bondi and the city’s underworld.

Bouncer Les Norton’s work at the illegal Kelly Club draws him into another series of criminal misadventures. His dangerous circle includes casino owner Price Galese, a Vietnam-trained hitman, and an artist who supplements his income by dealing drugs.

Les Norton calls on the boys from Binjiwunyawunya to help his casino-owning boss escape trouble. These adventures also put the Queensland bouncer in Long Bay Gaol and into a violent confrontation aboard a tram in Melbourne’s St Kilda.

Les Norton’s latest adventure spans political circles in Canberra and troubled streets in Belfast. The action eventually converges on a survivalist stronghold in the Tweed Valley, where the Australian bouncer faces an armed confrontation amid escalating violence.

With the Kelly Club facing closure, Les Norton hopes his Randwick apartment block will provide financial security. Instead, crumbling buildings, a council land claim, difficult tenants, and a murder turn his investment into an increasingly expensive nightmare.

Divorced Sydney butcher Bob Davis wants a quiet life until skinheads murder his gay school friend and nearly kill him. The attack unleashes a campaign of violence that leaves two detectives struggling to explain a mounting body count.

Conman Kelvin Kramer persuades Les Norton to accompany him and American model Crystal Linx to Surfers Paradise. Hoping for money, sunshine, and relief from romantic problems, Les instead finds that the Gold Coast assignment brings fresh trouble.

A raffle win sends Les Norton to America, where nightclub fights and Mafia killers disrupt his holiday. Escaping to the Caribbean, he teams up with a schoolteacher to explore his ancestry and a potentially lucrative family connection.

Les Norton’s Hawaiian Christmas holiday goes awry when he helps a detective and an old friend who runs brothels. Yakuza encounters, belligerent Marines, and a serial killer interrupt the tropical relaxation he had hoped to enjoy.

Les Norton’s move into an old girlfriend’s Bondi flat is interrupted by a job involving two buried bodies. Working with Major Garrick Lewis, known as the Gecko, he encounters intelligence operatives and violent complications around Bondi.

Les Norton accepts a free stay in Terrigal in exchange for watching Jimmy Rosewater, a friend’s nephew. The charming young man should be in prison, and his hidden agenda soon entangles Les with aggressive locals and armed bikers.

This collection combines further Les Norton adventures with Robert G. Barrett’s personal commentary. Alongside the fictional Queenslander’s exploits, Barrett discusses experiences and opinions involving publication, celebrity, unemployment benefits, and dating in his characteristically irreverent voice.

Collected from his columns for People magazine, Robert G. Barrett’s nonfiction pieces examine Australian society and public life. His comic, provocative commentary considers the country’s admired figures and villains through observations on the Australia of his time.

A radio appearance and rafting holiday in northern Queensland turn into a search for two missing divers. Les Norton heads toward Cooktown, encountering crocodiles, hostile strangers, and a woman pursuing UFOs as the journey reveals unexpected dangers.

After spotting his old friend Neville Nixon behind an extreme water polo competition on television, Les Norton accepts a driving job. Taking the Murrumbidgee Mud Crabs to their final proves more complicated than the straightforward assignment he expected.

A holiday in Shoal Bay comes with a condition: Les Norton must help Eddie Salita eliminate a corrupt policeman. Federal police, Newcastle heavies, and an enigmatic churchgoer named Digger complicate a job that quickly goes wrong.

Les Norton invests fifty thousand dollars in a friend’s film, only to be blamed when a bomb explodes on set. Now a fugitive, he crosses paths with drug dealers and other hostile figures while trying to establish his innocence.

Surf journalist Brian Bradshaw visits a Micronesian island ruled by Australian veteran Ron Milne, whose hemp business attracts American hostility. Ancient ruins and strange technology complicate Brian’s assignment as political conflict threatens the island’s apparent paradise.

Recovering from a slipped disc, Les Norton drives to Narooma for a blues festival and some rest. An altercation with fishermen attracts a dangerous enemy, while new acquaintances and bizarre encounters complicate his stay on the South Coast.

A long-delayed letter alerts Les Norton to valuable paintings hidden in a Victorian church by an infamous Kings Cross occultist. An assignment involving a crooked Melbourne art dealer gives him an opportunity to pursue the missing works.

A bicycle mishap leaves Les Norton on bail and threatened by an armed street gang. With help from Warren, he adopts the identity of filmmaker Len Gordon and hides at a luxury health resort while Eddie handles the trouble.

A Newcastle electrician and his girlfriend investigate the mystery of Nikola Tesla’s supposed visit to Australia in 1925. Their search draws unwanted attention from people determined to silence them, including agents connected to the CIA.

Recovering from flu, Les Norton accepts a lucrative offer to locate a stolen film script for an Albanian Mafia associate. His search through Bondi and Terrigal brings drug-lab danger and violent encounters that make the reward increasingly questionable.

Les Norton travels to Nimbin to help an old army friend of Eddie Salita open a bar. A chaotic wedding stop, an eccentric nightclub job, and threats against the bar owner turn the journey into another dangerous assignment.