Sumbeach on the Gulf of Thailand is home to fishermen, tradesmen, labourers, businessmen, policemen, service providers, expats and tourists all going about their lives in measured tranquillity under the heat of the oriental sun - its bars, restaurants and golf courses overlooked by the towering L’Hotel Majestique. Sumbar, a short walk along the beach, offers upstairs rooms with a sea view, a swimming pool, and cold beers in the noon day sun. For Australian tourist Jack Featherstone, Sumbeach is a locale to relax in, on stop-over to Paris. For wealthy Texan businessman Donald Randalson Jnr, Sumbeach offers a week of golf. For Australian librarians Beatrice Young and Eugene Parry, Sumbeach is a place for unexpected love and the exposure of dark secrets. For English police-woman Amelia Sanderson, Sumbeach is where she’ll search among the expats for a murderer. Overseeing all is Police Captain Choniburshakanari. He knows everything about the activities in his sleepy town, particularly among the expats. Or does he? Sumbeach is an idyllic paradise, though that may be a façade, particularly when the disparate guests celebrate a fortieth birthday at Sumbar on Sumbeach.

Mary-Anne Walton wasn’t coming back. Caught up in the explosive scandal destroying the reputation of her boss, international movie producer Harold Kempenski, she’d slipped off the stern of The Blue Dahlia. Her body was never found. I was rocked by her disappearance because I knew she was innocent. I’m Dougay Roberre, an Australian living on the French Riviera, and after Mary-Anne’s demise, friends suggested I get away, to go to Gallipoli on an Australian pilgrimage; however, when there, they didn’t advise me to become entangled with a gorgeous Brazilian-American woman who seemed to have stepped from the sands of Copacabana Beach! Before I could enjoy Türkiye, there were a few things to be done. I had to assist a young woman in love escape the overbearing clutches of her obsessive brother; track down a stolen jade chess set; and try not get involved in the aftermath of a blaze in a car yard. All in all, nothing out of the ordinary for me, n’est ce pas?

The astonishing story of James Hardy Vaux, writer of Australia's first dictionary and first true-crime memoir If you wear 'togs', tell a 'yarn', call someone 'sly', or refuse to 'snitch' on a friend then you are talking like a convict. These words, and hundreds of others, once left colonial magistrates baffled and police confused. So comprehensible to us today, the flash language of criminals and convicts had marine officer Watkin Tench complaining about the need for an interpreter in the colonial court. Luckily, by 1811, that man was at hand. James Hardy Vaux - conman, pickpocket, absconder and thief, born into comfortable circumstances in England - was so drawn to a life of crime he was transported to Australia ... not once, but three times! Vaux's talents, glibness and audacity were extraordinary, and perceiving an opportunity to ingratiate himself with authorities during his second sentence, he set about writing a dictionary of the criminal slang of the colony, which was recognised for its uniqueness and taken back to England to be published. Kel Richards tells Vaux's story brilliantly, with the help of Vaux's own extraordinarily candid memoir of misdeeds - one of the first true-crime memoirs ever published. Kel's book combines two of his favourite subjects: the inventiveness, humour and origins of Australian English, and our history of fabulous, disreputable characters. With echoes of The Surgeon of Crowthorne as well as Oliver Twist, Flash Jim is a ripping read - especially for those who appreciate the power of words and the convict contribution to our idiom. PRAISE 'James Hardy Vaux was a con-man with a talent for words who wrote the first dictionary of Australian English. Kel Richards is a word-man with a talent for telling a stirring story about the con-man. In Flash Jim Kel Richards brings James Hardy Vaux to life as we haven't seen him before' - Emeritus Professor Roland Sussex, School of Languages and Comparative Cultural Studies, University of Queensland 'An engaging tale from a great student of our language about one of the conmen who gave Australia its character - and its distinctive slang' - Andrew Bolt, broadcaster and columnist 'One of the strongest bonds binding the people of Australia together is the Australian language. We speak a dialect of English richer and more colourful than most. When we call someone a "hoon" or invite a friend to a "barbie" we know immediately what we're talking about - but we have to translate for overseas visitors. This powerful cultural bond was, as Kel explains, built on four foundations. And the most colourful of those four was convict slang. The role that it played, and still plays, in the Australian language, and the story of the man who first recorded it is - as we used to say - a "ripping yarn". It makes a page-turning story' - Alan Jones, broadcaster and columnist 'There's never been a more important time to truly understand our Australian history and this book is a great introduction to the richness of our language and a wonderful window onto the real life of colonial Australia from my favourite wordsmith, Kel Richards' - Peta Credlin, broadcaster and columnist