The Bondi Undertow is an anthology of eight standalone short stories set in post-war Bondi, 1946–48, each around 13,000 words: a complete tale in one sitting. Every entry is told by a different working observer — a promenade photographer, a milk bar owner, a pawnbroker, a night telephonist — and it is always the trade itself, the docket book or the pledge ledger or the switchboard, that surfaces the hidden current the story turns on.
These are not murder mysteries. There is no body and no detective; what looks like crime usually turns out to be kindness, grief or protection in disguise. Think Tales of the Unexpected with the sting softened to warmth: fair play all the way through, and a final page that sends you straight back to the first.
The Books
Book 1
The Beach Photographer
Sixpence a smile, and it works all summer. Then a woman pays six pounds for one negative out of Saturday's roll: not the print, the negative, and a stranger at the rail in the background.
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Book 2
The Milk Bar Tab
On the board behind the counter, one line of chalk gets put back fresh every Saturday night since 1942. Now a shilling comes under the door on Tuesdays, wrapped in greaseproof, and Voula has stopped pretending not to watch.
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Book 3
The Pawned Medals
Three firsts of the month left, then the auctioneer, then the door. The pawnbroker wants the top shelf of his window empty before then. Half the parade has already decided what sort of man keeps a widow's medals behind glass.
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Book 4
The Night Exchange
Eleven o'clock Thursday, the same booking every week: both ends lift, nobody speaks, and the night operator holds an hour of somebody's quiet room. The cut-over keeps two of eleven girls, and she means to be one.
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Book 5
The Poison Book
The poisons register comes up on its chain every morning, five columns and no sixth, and the Board's inspector is due on the fourteenth. Then Saturday's stocktake puts Sparrow's own count against the book she keeps.
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Book 6
The Scholarship Piece
Ronnie Hebden cannot get past bar eight, comes for the last half-hour of every day, and leaves twice the fee on the lid. Scholarship entries close Friday, and the form wants Miss Stroud's name under the words fit to present.
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Book 7
The Bookie's Runner
Fastest legs in Bondi, threepence a docket, and four Saturdays of school left before Les Noonan must say yes or no. Then the uniforms put Les against the chemist's window, and Micky starts keeping form on a sergeant.
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Book 8
The Wireless Voice
Nine dinners out of a kitchen eight feet by twelve. At seven the wireless says the serial's doctor is to be written out on Friday week. Nine episodes left, and the cook means to see the face behind that voice.
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