The Department Books in Order

The Department books take place in a very recognisable modern Australia that happens to be plagued by monsters. Werewolves prowl industrial estates, entities from other dimensions slip through cracks in reality, and someone has to respond when things stop being merely strange and start getting dangerous.

That job falls to the Australian Department of Unusual Events. It is part government agency, part paramilitary unit, and part emergency service for supernatural disasters. The stories are told by a veteran field agent addressing a room full of rookies. Each book feels like a long, brutally honest training session built around a mission that went wrong in all the ways the manuals never mention.

In The Trouble With Werewolves the narrator walks new recruits through a supposedly simple operation that turns into a running battle with creatures that are seven feet tall, incredibly strong, and not remotely interested in playing fair. The lesson is clear. If you want to survive, you cheat shamelessly. The book digs into tactics, weapons, and the messy reality of trying to keep civilians alive when the enemy can smell fear from across a car park.

The Trouble With Eldritch Entities pushes things further. Now the enemy is not a predator you can outflank but a primeval horror that bends minds and twists landscapes. The same dry, instructive voice talks about artillery, containment plans, and what happens when none of that is enough. The result is a blend of cosmic horror and procedural thriller that still finds room for gallows humour.

Together, the novellas build a picture of the Department as a place where competence and black comedy are survival tools. Paperwork matters, but it is the people in the field who stand between ordinary suburbs and the kinds of nightmares that should have stayed in other dimensions. You can read each book on its own, yet reading both gives a fuller sense of the agency, its culture, and the kind of world it quietly holds together.