Bondi, 1946–47. The war is over and the mail has gone mad. Rhoda Sixsmith carried parcels through the war, then was retrenched when the men came home — until the Bondi Beach Post Office invents her a job: Delivery Enquiries Assistant, with a PMG letter authorising her to ask questions to get a stubborn parcel delivered — a skeleton key into the houses of the famous and the back offices of the trade.
These are gentle historical cozies in the register of The No. 1 Ladies' Detective Agency — how-done-it puzzles solved without a body. Every case: an urgent parcel fails strangely, and completing the delivery means uncovering the hidden trouble behind it. Underneath runs a comedy of suitors and one carpenter schoolfriend neither Rhoda nor Col will look at directly — a slow-burn courtship you'll wait all eight books to see land.
The Books
Book 1
Return to Sender
Three postmen have climbed that drive on three separate evenings and come away with the parcel still in their hands. A wireless serial star will not receive it, and her household has its answers ready.
Not yet on sale
Book 2
A Particular Shade
Lionel Strode has painted with one mixer's red for eleven years, and the tin the department delivered him holds a scarlet he has never owned. Nine days of branch letters have gone unanswered.
Not yet on sale
Book 3
Money for the Dead
A war-gratuity order drawn to a private killed in New Guinea in 1943 — and a claim lodged for it in person, over a city counter, in March 1946. Both papers are perfectly correct.
Not yet on sale
Book 4
Postmark Megalong
The returns shelf gives up a fourth failure in four years, its label written in the same unvarying copperplate as the other three. Nobody at the North Bondi address has ever heard the name on it.
Not yet on sale
Book 5
Missing in Transit
Registered articles are leaving the GPO on the Monday run and not reaching the delivery book. Then an inspector arrives with a grey audit book worn soft at the corners and takes the spare desk by the window.
Not yet on sale
Book 6
No Fixed Address
No street and no number: The Fishing Shack, Port Stephens, in a woman's careful hand the damp has taken. Two years, three offices, and every one of them beaten by the same four words.
Not yet on sale
Book 7
Deepest Regret
Painters shift the POSTAL HISTORY cabinet off a wall it has held since before the war. Behind it, a telegram franked March 1943, an address three streets away, and no record of delivery.
Not yet on sale
Book 8
Signed For
A solicitor's packet first posted in 1938 finally reaches Rhoda's desk, addressed to her by name. Inside waits an estate one Bondi woman has refused, courteously and legibly, every single time for nine years.
Not yet on sale
New to the world of Bondi?
Free short stories and news of new releases. Join the list, confirm your email, and your first story arrives straight away.
Join the newsletter