Half Past Dead

With Half Past Dead actor and singer Jane Clifton makes her brilliant debut, combining a devilish grasp of plot and character with an hilarious comic touch.

Ronnie Collins is happily married to lawyer Boyd. They have a son, Matt, to whom she's devoted. She enjoys her job as a designer at Arthouse Fabrics. In fact, Ronnie's life is pretty damn good. Trouble is, she has a massive crush on her attractive workmate Lawrence Konitz. But a bit of harmless office flirtation couldn't hurt anyone…could it? When Ronnie wakes up hungover in Lawrence Konitz's bed, she knows she has made a Big Mistake. When she discovers Lawrence's bloodstained body on the kitchen floor, she knows she's in big trouble. Returning to the scene of the crime an hour later and finding his body gone, things take an unexpected turn for the weird.

What does Ronnie's boss at Arthouse Fabrics know, that he's not telling her? And why does Arthouse lose a big contract the very day that Lawrence disappears? Nothing and no-one are as they seemed. Ronnie's being watched. Her family are in danger, but the last person she can turn to for help is her husband. Ronnie's starting to feel half past dead herself. And that's before the plot really gets puzzling.

Set in Melbourne and Sydney, this is a hugely entertaining novel. Full of hilarious one-liners, and with the endearing Ronnie Collins at its heart, Half Past Dead is a great crime fiction debut.

Praise for Half Past Dead:

'Jane Clifton is right on the money'

Sunday Age

'Clifton…makes a sparkling debut as a novelist with this spicy thriller, peppered with a seemingly endless string of one-liners.'

Adelaide Advertiser

'Half Past Dead has a plot tailor-made for modern thriller fans who like their hero(ine) to have a cool lifestyle and to have more than a pinch of wit.'

Age

'Rips along at almost a joke a line.'

Graeme Blundell, Australian