Richard Warren Strong

THE WAKE OF JOE BLIGHT and other stories Richard Warren Strong

Three beaches in Australia, and three very different stories: one real or historical, and two fictive or imaginary. The Wake of Joe Blight is a modern day treasure hunt on Great Keppel Island, in North Queensland. Clancy, "the kookaburra', discovers a treasure buried in the sand, but the treasure has a curse attached to it, the curse of Joe Blight. All kinds of strange events follow in the wake of this discovery. Mystery on Cheviot Beach, or the mysterious disappearance of Harold Holt. Soon after Harold Holt, seventeenth Prime Minister of Australia disappeared in the surf off Cheviot Bay near Portsea in December 1967, a report by the Commonweath Police and the Victoria Police was drafted, based on testimony from eye witnesses of the scene. In spite of wild rumours, no further public enquiry was made until 2005, when the coroner classified the disappearance as accidental drowning. The author examines the various documents contained in the national archives, in search of a clue to this mysterious disappearance. Mystery on Telegraph Beach. When a Japanese tourist is found lying inanimate on the ocean beach near Broome in the far North West of Australia, the local police begin to investigate. Meanwhile an American woman has disappeared from her hotel. William Bliggs, an expatriate on holiday in the area is questioned about the affair, then retained in Broome. Later he is hired by the "Agency" to further their investigation. Was this young Japanese man a spy? And why did the American woman have post traumatic amnesia? Or to say it another way, who killed Cock Robin, and why did Susan have a fake passport?