Just Add Nauseam

What lurks beneath the surface down under Down Under? Asylum seekers save the day in Tasmania! Eco-terrorists! Old wills! Egotistical chef! Climate change scientist as murder suspect!

What’s simmering just below the surface at Hornbeam Hall? A weekend at an estate in modern Tasmania — a distant outpost of the British Empire that time forgot — a stylish blue-food dinner party, a hostess with deadly allergies and lethal secrets she’s determined to divulge: the stuff of a life snuffed short before the Murdering Mange, Fatal Fudge and Terrorist Bombe course. Gentleman Quaminus Frye lifts the lid off the bubbling stew and exposes us to a new dish in a timeless setting: murder in a country home, twenty-first century-style. Harbouring asylum seekers and climate change … old grudges and death aboard an eco-warrior ship … cybercrime and computer hacking … the ingredients for a traditional recipe with a modern twist. Tasmania’s amateur detective uses handwriting analysis to ensure that justice is served along with Turquack and Lavender Mash.

Susan in New Orleans 08

The AFTBACK Chronicles

A satirical look at human life and love through the eyes of three beloved stuffed animals: two bears and a dog.

Q: How are people supposed to cope these days?

A: Scheherazade-like stories, animal-style, from their three beloved stuffed ones.

Poor Peter Brownlow. Poor Deirdre B. Being apart for twelve months is not the thing for a medical-doctor-soon-to-be-economics-professor and an art historian married for a mere five-and-four-fifths years.

Lassoed by Love, 21st Century-Style.

"Get my wife through the separation," orders Peter.

"Oh boy, Boz," says Sturgess Ursule, dominant bear. "I’ll tell Mistress about when I went to China undercover to expose bear gall bladder harvesting with my haberdasher’s special invisible cloak of ten thousand hand-sewn sequins. And how I found Debi the love of my life on the Internet, except she had one little problem besides the relatives she wants to bring to this country: RLS: Restless Leg Syndrome. I'm black and blue as well as purple and white."

"Yes, Master," barks Bluey Bligmund the devoted Scottish terrier. "Remember when we went to Paris for your course and I snuck away for the weekend to discover my wolf roots at that hideously expensive retreat in the Highlands of Scotland? Without that awakening I could never have established my Clinic at the Top of the Stairs, where I treated such cyberspace luminaries as Lassie, Rin Tin Tin and Sam the Terrorist Sniffer Dog."

"Whatever you say, Boss," whispers Mikey Kerowack, beatnik bear, who processes his severe autism literarily, creating an opium-soaked odyssey through the Wild West. Cowboy, prisoners, wild horses, Mr and Mrs America, bureaucrat, journalist, animal activist, relocated informer … Mikey hopes his epic will be worthy of his idol, Jack Kerouac.

Nobody expects what happens after Reunion at Los Angeles International Airport. The stuffed animals drag their humans Peter and Deirdre into a Wild West odyssey worthy of Jack Kerouac, Jean Cocteau and Earth First!

And so The AFTBACK Chronicles are born.

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Where to find Susan Butler's books

Please see either the pages relating to each book or order them by contacting the author.