John D Nairn

The worlds

Three Australian coastal places in the same years, at different points on the same curve: one already a suburb of Sydney, one a scatter of fibro cottages around a single hotel and about to become a city, and one village where the road runs out and the water is the main street.

Bondi

Sydney, 1939–1949 — one square mile, seen through many eyes

A suburb living through the century’s great hinge: blackout curtains on Campbell Parade, then the harder work of peace. Dog-walkers, librarians, dancers and code-breakers keep stumbling onto its quiet mysteries.

Enter Bondi →

The Gold Coast

Queensland, 1946–1956 — a name nobody has said yet

In 1946 there was no Gold Coast. There was Elston, renamed Surfers Paradise to match a publican’s hotel, which a good half of the district still declined to call anything of the sort.

Enter the Gold Coast →

Sussex Inlet

New South Wales, 1946–1950 — where the water is the main street

Eleven families on the south bank of a drowned river, with a manual exchange, two guest houses, a boatshed and no sealed road in or out. A line drawn across the inlet in 1915 still decides who is allowed to investigate what.

Enter Sussex Inlet →

Where to start

About the Author

John D Nairn writes warm-hearted mysteries set in the laneways, headlands and surf-clubs of postwar Sydney. The Wagging Tail is a closed eight-book series — the whole arc planned, the ending earned.

More about John →