Territory (64 page)

‘Ah,' he pounced like a hungry cat. It was exactly what he was after. ‘So it's a similar genre to
Pearl Harbor
then, a war story with a love theme.' Nigel scratched away at his notepad, delighted. At this early stage, before commencement of filming, the production house was releasing no
specific details about
Torpedo Junction,
merely the title, the principal cast, and the fact that it was the next big-budget production from Mammoth.

‘No, it's not a war story with a love theme,' she said tightly. That wasn't what she'd meant at all, Sam thought, cursing the man. What the hell did it matter anyway? Whatever she said he'd misquote her.

‘Who'd like another drink?' Reg asked, giving Sam a warning glance as he rose from the booth. It was the way Nigel often conducted interviews. Offend the subject just enough to make them defensive. That way they gave away more of themselves or, in this case, more of the project. The subject matter of the script was under wraps, and Sam knew that.

‘I'm fine, thank you, Reginald,' Nigel said, taking the mildest sip from his gin and tonic.

‘Another red for me, thanks,' Sam gave Reg a nod that said she not only knew exactly where she stood, but she was more than a match for Nigel Daly.

‘It's not at all like
Pearl Harbor
actually, Nigel,' she said, draining the last of her glass and smiling, she hoped, sweetly.

‘What is it like then?'

‘Why don't you ask me how I feel about working with Brett Marsdon? It's what everyone will want to know, surely.'

She was right of course, but he'd be able to sell another whole story on the
Torpedo Junction
theme if he could get it out of her. ‘So you don't want to discuss the script?' He gave it one last try.

‘It's about people, Nigel. One of the best scripts I've ever read. And it's all about people.'

The smug bitch, he thought. She went on to parrot the details which had been generally released. It was an American production, Mammoth's biggest budget movie of the year, they were shooting offshore, interiors at Fox
Studios in Sydney and on location somewhere in the South Pacific or far north Queensland, the specific details hadn't been released yet. It was nothing he didn't know already. Nigel gave up.

‘So tell me about Brett Marsdon,' he said. ‘How do you feel about working with Hollywood's hottest property?'

Not all of the questions were trite. In true form, Nigel questioned her about the fact that she would be playing an Englishwoman. ‘Film critics are very quick to judge accents,' he said.

‘I've been working in the English theatre for the past two years,' she replied, a fact of which Nigel was fully aware, she thought. He'd not only seen a number of her performances, but Reg would have sent him her CV. She glanced at Reginald but he sipped his white wine and said nothing. It was not his job to field the questions.

‘Of course,' Nigel replied smoothly, ‘but this is your first movie role, is it not?'

Is it not
, she thought, whoever said
is it not
? But, aware that he was once again needling her, she gave a cheeky smile instead of biting back. ‘Oh no, I was a prostitute in a low-budget thriller three years ago.'

‘Really?' It was Nigel's turn to glance at Reginald. ‘That wasn't on the CV.'

‘I ended up on the cutting-room floor, the whole scene did. And the movie bombed anyway.'

‘I see.' Well, he could hardly use that, could he? He asked her about her ties to England. After a year as the darling of London's West End, did she anticipate coming back to Britain, or would Hollywood claim her? Surprisingly enough, she warmed to the theme.

‘I'll go where the work is, of course,' she said, ‘but I'd like to live in Britain when I can.' She grinned at Reg. ‘I've bought a house here.'

‘Oh?' Nigel feigned interest. ‘Where?'

‘Fareham.'

‘Fareham!' His surprise pleased her. Had he expected her to say Chelsea or South Kensington? ‘Why on earth Fareham? It's miles from anywhere.'

‘It's where I did my first panto. Well my only panto actually,' she corrected herself. ‘
Cinderella
at Ferneham Hall, Fareham, 1994.'

Nigel winced. The traditional Christmas family pantomime was hardly something to boast of, and certainly not a production in a backwater like Fareham. Really, the girl was impossible.

Sam looked at Reg. She had no intention of cloaking her humble beginnings in secrecy and she couldn't give a damn if others wished that she would. But she didn't want to offend Reg. Reg had been responsible for her success and, in the early days, he'd suggested she neglect to mention her lack of formal training to the press. Surprisingly enough, Reginald Harcourt gave an encouraging nod.

‘It was the first time I'd ever worked in the theatre,' Sam said, ‘although the producers didn't know it. Not that they would have cared, I suppose. I was only hired because of the soapie.'

Nigel looked incredulously at Reginald. He'd known that Samantha Lindsay had started out as a teenager in an Aussie soap, but surely they didn't want to go in that direction?

Reginald made his one and only contribution to the interview. ‘I think it's time Sam's background was discussed. It makes her different,' he suggested mildly. ‘I think readers would find it interesting.'

Readers maybe, Nigel thought, but hardly prospective producers and casting agents. Oh well, if the girl wanted to hang herself, and if he had the agent's permission, he was only too happy to oblige.

‘How fascinating,' he said as he scribbled in his pad.

Judy Nunn

Maralinga

During the darkest days of the Cold War, in the remote wilderness of a South Australian desert, the future of an infant nation is being decided … without its people's knowledge.

A British airbase in the middle of nowhere; an atomic weapons testing ground; an army of raw youth led by powerful, ambitious men – a cocktail for disaster. Such is Maralinga in the spring of 1956.

Maralinga
is a story of British Lieutenant Daniel Gardiner, who accepts a twelve-month posting to the wilds of South Australia on a promise of rapid promotion; Harold Dartleigh, Deputy Director of MI6 and his undercover operative Gideon Melbray; Australian Army Colonel Nick Stratton and the enigmatic Petraeus Mitchell, bushman and anthropologist. They all find themselves in a violent and unforgiving landscape, infected with the unique madness and excitement that only nuclear testing creates.

Maralinga
is also a story of love; a love so strong that it draws the adventurous young English journalist Elizabeth Hoffmann halfway around the world in search of the truth. And
Maralinga
is a story of heartbreak; heartbreak brought to the innocent First Australians who had walked their land unhindered for 40,000 years.

Maralinga … a desolate place where history demands an emerging nation choose between hell and reason.

 

Judy Nunn

Floodtide

This novel is a brilliant observation of turbulent times in the mighty ‘Iron Ore State' – Western Australia.
Floodtide
traces the fortunes of four men and four families over four memorable decades: The prosperous post-war 1950s when childhood is idyllic and carefree in the small, peaceful city of Perth … The turbulent 60s when youth is caught up in the conflict of the Vietnam War and free love reigns … The avaricious 70s when Western Australia's mineral boom sees the rise of a new young breed of aggressive entrepreneurs … The corrupt 80s and the birth of ‘WA Inc', when the alliance of greedy politicians and powerful businessmen brings the state to its knees, even threatening the downfall of the federal government.

Each of the four who travel this journey has a story to tell. An environmentalist fights to save the primitive and beautiful Pilbara coast from the careless ravaging of mining conglomerates; a Vietnam War veteran rises above crippling injuries to discover a talent that gains him an international reputation; and an ambitious geologist joins forces with a hard-core businessman to lead the way in the growth of Perth from a sleepy town to a glittering citadel. But, as the 90s ushers in a new age when innocence is lost, all four are caught up in the irreversible tides of change, and actions must be answered for.

Floodtide
is a character-driven, merciless rush of blood from the pen of Judy Nunn, one of Australia's master storytellers.

 

Judy Nunn

Heritage

In a time when desperate people were seizing with both hands the chance for freedom, refugees from more than seventy nations gathered beneath the Southern Cross to forge a new national identity. They came from all over wartorn Europe to the mountains of Australia to help realise one man's dream: the mighty Snowy Mountains Hydro-Electric Scheme. One of the greatest engineering feats of the 20th century, the Snowy Scheme was being built with pride from the sweat and blood of displaced people.

People of all races and creeds tunnelled through a mountain range to turn the course of a majestic river, trying to put to rest ghosts from the inferno of history: buried memories, unimaginable pain and deadly secrets.

From the ruins of Berlin to the birth of Israel, from the Italian Alps to the Australian high country,
Heritage
is a passionate and fast-paced tale of rebirth, struggle, sacrifice and redemption, and a tribute to those who gave meaning to the Australian spirit.

 

Judy Nunn

Beneath the Southern Cross

‘A night of debauchery it was …'

Thomas Kendall stood with his grandsons beside the massive sandstone walls of Fort Macquarie. He smiled as he looked out across Sydney Cove, ‘… that night they brought the women convicts ashore …'

In 1783, Thomas Kendall, a naive nineteen-year-old sentenced to transportation for burglary, finds himself in Sydney Town and a new life in the wild and lawless land beneath the Southern Cross.

Thomas fathers a dynasty that will last beyond two hundred years. His descendants play their part in the forging of a nation, but greed and prejudice see an irreparable rift in the family which will echo through the generations. It is only when a young man reaches far into the past and rights a grievous wrong that the Kendall family can reclaim its honour.

Beneath the Southern Cross
is as much a story of a city as it is a family chronicle. With her uncanny ability to bring history to life in technicolour, Judy Nunn traces the fortunes of Thomas Kendall's descendants through good times and bad, two devastating wars and several social revolutions to the present day, vividly drawing the events, the ideas and issues that have made the city of Sydney and the nation of Australia what they are today.

 

Judy Nunn

Kal

Kalgoorlie. It grew out of the red dust of the desert over the world's richest vein of gold. Like the gold it guarded, Kalgoorlie was a magnet to anyone with a sense of adventure, anyone who could dream. People were drawn there from all over the world, settling to start afresh or to seek their fortunes. They called it
Kal;
it was a place where dreams came true or were lost forever in the dust. It could reward you or it could destroy you, but it would never let you go. You staked your claim in Kal and Kal staked its claim in you.

In a story as breathtaking and as sweeping as the land itself, Judy Nunn brings Kal magically to life through the lives of two families, one Australian and one Italian. From the heady early days of the gold rush to the horrors of the First World War in Gallipoli and France, to the shame and confrontation of the post-war riots,
Kal
tells the story of Australia itself and the people who forged a nation out of a harsh and unforgiving land.

‘A huge and sumptuous novel … absolutely unputdownable. Nunn is mistress of the old-fashioned story we beg to hear.'
Herald Sun

 

Judy Nunn

Araluen

From the South Australian vineyards of the 1850s to mega-budget movie-making in modern-day New York,
Araluen
tells the story of one man's quest for wealth and position, and its shattering effect on succeeding generations.

Turn-of-the-century Sydney gaming houses … the opulence and corruption of Hollywood's golden age … the colour and excitement of the America's Cup … the relentless loneliness of the outback … Judy Nunn weaves an intricate web of characters and locations in this spellbinding saga of the Ross family and its inescapable legacy of greed and power.

 

Judy Nunn

Centre Stage

The stars shine on centre stage … But what secrets lie hidden in the shadows?

Alex Rainford has it all. He's sexy, charismatic and adored by fans the world over. But Alex is not all he seems. What spectre from the past is driving him ever closer to evil? And who will fall under his spell along the way?

Madeleine Frances, beautiful stage and screen actress. Years before, she had escaped Alex's fatal charm, but now she is forced to confront him once again … and reveal her devastating secret.

Susannah Wright, the finest classical actress of her generation. Not even her awesome talent can save her from Alex's dangerous charisma.

Imogen McLaughlin, the promising young actress whose biggest career break could be her greatest downfall. She wants Alex Rainford – and she has no idea that he has the power to destroy her …

Centre Stage
is a tantalising, behind-the-scenes glimpse into the world of theatre and film and what goes on when the spotlight dims and the curtain falls.

 

Judy Nunn

The Glitter Game

The glitter of money … the glitter of power … the glitter of stardom … Television … the seductive world where everyone plays the glitter game.

The greatest smash-hit series ever created. The hottest female star in a cutthroat world where careers are made and destroyed with a word in the right ear … or a night in the right bed. Only the ruthless make it to the top. And they will stop at nothing to stay there. Not even murder.

The Glitter Game,
Judy Nunn's first adult novel, is a delicious exposé of the high-voltage world of television, a scandalous behind-the-scenes look at what goes on when the cameras stop rolling.

‘A steamy novel that strips bare the sexy secrets of the soap business.'
People,
UK