Jack of Diamonds

by Bryce Courtenay

(a division of Penguin Books Ltd)

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  First published by Penguin Group (Australia), 2012

  Text copyright © Bryce Courtenay 2012

  The moral right of the author has been asserted

  ‘Love Me Or Leave Me’ by Walter Donaldson & Gus Kahn © 1928,

  US Copyright Renewed, All Rights Reserved, Donaldson Publishing Co. & Gilbert Keyes Music Co.

  © 1928 Donaldson Music Co., Estate of Gus Khan.

  Used by permission of EMI Music Publishing Australia Pty Limited.

  International copyright secured. All rights reserved.

  The verse that opens the Epilogue is an extract from Through the Looking Glass by Lewis Carroll.

  Every effort has been made to locate all copyright holders, and the publisher welcomes hearing from anyone in this regard.

  All rights reserved. Without limiting the rights under copyright reserved above, no part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in or introduced into a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means (electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise), without the prior written permission of both the copyright owner and the above publisher of this book.

  Cover design by Adam Laszczuk © Penguin Group (Australia)

  Cover photography: Sunset Stock Connection Blue/Alamy; keyboard: Alama Images Inc./Alamy; playing card: istock.

  penguin.com.au

  ISBN: 978-0-85796-030-6

  Also By Bryce Courtenay

  Simon Koo is an ambitious Australian-born Chinese who goes to Singapore in the mid-sixties to work for an advertising agency. But the Wing brothers, who run the agency, are not what they seem. There is soon trouble when Simon falls in love with the forbidden Mercy B. Lord.

  With no family or connections, this beautiful young woman is powerless to resist the evil influence of Beatrice Fong, a manipulative businesswoman, who, in league with the Wing brothers, lures her into the international trade in sex workers and heroin trafficking involving the American CIA. Simon must save her at any cost.

  Set against the wretched trade in drugs and human misery operating during the Vietnam War, Fortune Cookie is a compelling thriller, with a story of love against impossible odds at its heart.

  In the aftermath of the Great Depression few opportunities existed for working-class boys, but at just eighteen Danny Dunn has everything going for him: brains, looks, sporting ability – and an easy charm. His parents run The Hero, a neighbourhood pub, and Danny is a local hero.

  Luck changes for Danny when he signs up to go to war. He returns home a physically broken man, to a life that will be changed forever. Together with Helen, the woman who becomes his wife, he sets about rebuilding his life.

  Set against a backdrop of Australian pubs and politics, The Story of Danny Dunn is an Australian family saga spanning three generations. It is a compelling tale of love, ambition and the destructive power of obsession.

  Nick Duncan is a semi-retired, wealthy shipping magnate who lives in idyllic Beautiful Bay, Vanuatu, where he is known as the old patriarch of the islands. He is grieving the loss of his beguiling Eurasian true love, Anna, and is suffering for the first time from disturbing flashbacks to the Second World War.

  So he puts pen to paper and tells the compelling tale of the life he has lived since his war-hero days. It’s an adventurous life that has had at its heart the love of two passionate and unforgettable – but very different – women.

  The seductive Anna Til and the beguiling Marg Hamilton have spent a lifetime in contest for Nick’s devotion. Nick remains torn between them, and struggles between their two opposing worlds of economic exploitation and environmental crusade – until he is called upon to referee . . .

  Moving between the exotic Pacific Islands, Japan and Australia, over several decades, Fishing for Stars is an epic drama of adventure, ambition and unconventional love, and the stunning sequel to Bryce Courtenay’s best-selling The Persimmon Tree.

  The persimmon tree is a symbol of life, a heartwood that will outlast everything man can make . . .

  It is 1942 in the Dutch East Indies, and Nick Duncan is a young Australian butterfly collector in search of a single exotic butterfly. With invading Japanese forces coming closer by the day, Nick falls in love with the intoxicating Anna van Heerden.

  Their time together is brief, as both are forced into separate, dangerous escapes. They plan to reunite and marry in Australia but it is several years before their paths cross again, scarred forever by the dark events of a long, cruel war.

  In The Persimmon Tree, Bryce Courtenay gives us a story of love and friendship set against the dramatic backdrop of the Pacific during the Second World War.

  ‘I am Sylvia Honeyeater; I think myself born around 1196, and this is the story of my life.’

  From master storyteller Bryce Courtenay comes the colourful epic of Sylvia. Late twelfth-century Europe is torn by religious intolerance. Sylvia, with a singing voice that can literally charm the birds out of the trees, and an acute and questioning mind that refuses to accept unreasoned beliefs, embarks on a pilgrimage. She joins the Children’s Crusade, bound for the Holy Land.

  From a bawdy life as an entertainer in a whorehouse to an austere and frequently cruel existence in a convent, she fights to be true to her destiny. And her mysterious birthmark causes much confusion: can this peasant maid indeed be a chosen messenger?

  Sylvia is a tale of adversity, of adventure and crusades, and of a beautiful and gifted woman.

  From Bryce Courtenay comes a novel of Africa. The time is 1939. White South Africa is a deeply divided nation with many of the Afrikaner people fanatically opposed to the English.

  The world is also on the brink of war and South Africa elects to fight for the Allied cause against Germany. Six-year-old Tom Fitzsaxby finds himself in The Boys Farm, an orphanage in a remote town in the high mountains, where the Afrikaners side fiercely with Hitler’s Germany.

  Tom’s English name proves sufficient for him to be ostracised, marking him as an outsider. And so begin some of life’s tougher lessons for the small, lonely boy. Like the whitethorn, one of Africa’s most enduring plants, Tom learns how to survive in the harsh climate of racial hatred. Then a terrible event sends him on a journey to ensure that justice is done. On the way, his most unexpected discovery is love.

  Inspired by real events, Brother Fish tells the story of three people from vastly differing backgrounds. All they have in common is a tough beginning in life.

  Jack McKenzie is a harmonica player, soldier, dreamer and small-time professional fisherman from a tiny island in Bass Strait. Nicole Lenoir-Jourdan is a strong-willed woman hiding from an ambiguous past in Shanghai. Larger than life, Private Jimmy Oldcorn was once a street kid and leader of a New York gang. Together, they reap a vast and not always legitimate fortune from the sea.

  Spanning eighty years and four continents, Brother Fish is an inspiring human drama of three lives brought together and changed forever by the extraordinary events of recent history. But most of all it is about the power of friendship and love.

  Billy O'Shannessy, once a prominent barrister, is now on the street where he sleeps on a bench outside the State Library. Above him on the windowsill rests a bronze statue of Matthew Flinders’ cat, Trim. Ryan is a ten-year-old, a near-street kid heading for the usual trouble. The two form an u
nlikely bond.

  Through telling Ryan the story of Flinders’ circumnavigation of Australia as seen through Trim’s eyes, Billy is drawn deeply into Ryan’s life and into the Sydney underworld.

  Matthew Flinders’ Cat is a modern-day story of friendship and redemption by internationally bestselling author Bryce Courtenay.

  In a small town like any other small town around Australia live the Maloneys. They are a fifth-generation Australian family of Irish Catholic descent who are struggling to reach the first rung of the social ladder. The Maloneys are a family you won’t forget: a strong mother, a father broken by war, three boys and two girls, one of whom has an illegitimate daughter. Each of their lives is changed forever by the four fires – passion, religion, warfare and fire itself.

  Four Fires is a story of the power of love and the triumph of the human spirit against the odds.

  A Vietnam Vet returns to an Australia that regards him as a mercenary guilty of war crimes.

  Thommo begins to develop all kinds of physical and mental problems, and thinks it must only be him until he finds that he is not alone. Ten mates, all ‘who remain of his platoon’, are affected in the same way.

  Now Thommo and his mates are eleven angry men out for revenge. They rope in an ex-Viet Cong with ‘special skills’and his own secret agenda. They’re the ‘Dirty Dozen’, just like the movie. Only it’s real life, and they’re so screwed up they couldn’t fight their way out of a wet paper bag.

  That is, until a woman of character steps in. Wendy’s infant daughter is dying and needs a transplant. She set out to mould this bunch of ex-jungle fighters into a unit that will fight for justice, by fair means or foul.

  Hell hath no fury . . .

  This is the story of two families – branches of the Solomons – transported to an alien land, both of whom eventually grow rich and powerful but who, through three generations, never for one moment relinquish their hatred for each other. It is also the story of our country from the beginning until we came of age as a nation.

  I have learned a great deal about Australia and those things which concern us as a people and make us, in many ways, who we are today. To write this book, I visited Gallipoli and came away deeply saddened by the terrible waste of our young blood. We would never be quite the same again. It has been a grand adventure and I hope that you will find Solomon’s Song a good and powerful story. No writer can possibly hope for more.

  Bryce Courtenay

  Jessica is based on the inspiring true story of a young girl’s fight for justice against tremendous odds

  A tomboy, Jessica is the pride of her father, as they work together on the struggling family farm. One quiet day, the peace of the bush is devastated by a terrible murder. Only Jessica is able to save the killer from the lynch mob – but will justice prevail in the courts?

  Nine months later, a baby is born . . . with Jessica determined to guard the secret of the father’s identity. The rivalry of Jessica and her beautiful sister for the love of the same man will echo throughout their lives – until finally the truth must be told.

  Set in the harsh Australian bush against the outbreak of World War I, this novel is heartbreaking in its innocence, and shattering in its brutality.

  Bryce Courtenay has created an unforgettable story of the enduring bond between two brothers.

  Brutally kidnapped and separated in childhood, Tommo and Hawk are reunited at the age of fifteen in Hobart Town. Together they escape their troubled pasts and set off on a journey into manhood. From whale hunting in the Pacific to the Maori wars of New Zealand, from the Rocks in Sydney to the miners’ riots in the goldfields, Tommo and Hawk must learn each other’s strengths and weaknesses in order to survive.

  Along the way, Hawk meets the outrageous Maggie Pye, who brings love and laughter into his life. But the demons of Tommo’s past return to haunt the brothers. With Tommo at his side, Hawk takes on a fight against all odds to save what they cherish most.

  An epic tale of adventure and romance from Australia’s bestselling author.

  Mrs Moses is a small woman with a big heart and enormous courage.

  The only survivor of a Cossack raid on her village, she takes with her a big cast-iron frying pan, so heavy that she can only sling it over her back. Yet this is no ordinary frying pan – it’s The Family Frying Pan, blessed with a Russian soul.

  From this frying pan Mrs Moses manages to feed the various refugees who are travelling with her across Russia to freedom. In return, each of the group must tell a story around the campfire at night – stories of compassion and bravery, of human frailty and, above all, of hope.

  The Family Frying Pan is Bryce Courtenay at his storytelling best.

  Ikey Solomon’s favourite saying is also his way of doing business. And in the business of thieving, he’s very successful indeed. Ikey’s partner in crime is his mistress, the forthright Mary Abacus, until misfortune befalls them. They are parted and each must make the harsh journey from thriving nineteenth-century London to the convict settlement of Van Diemen’s Land.

  In the backstreets and dives of Hobart Town, Mary learns the art of brewing and builds the Potato Factory, where she plans a new future. But her ambitions are threatened by Ikey’s wife, Hannah, her old enemy. The two women raise their separate families, one legitimate and the other bastard. As each woman sets out to destroy the other, the families are brought to the edge of disaster.

  A Recipe for Dreaming is a little treasure of wise words and beautiful images. With insight, humour and a deep sense of humanity, Bryce Courtenay inspires us to become dreamers and questioners, creators of lives that are rich and rewarding. Illuminating these musings are the superb visual poems of Anie Williams.

  In the end, love is more important than everything and it will conquer and overcome anything. Or that’s how Damon saw it, anyway. Damon wanted a book that talked a lot about love.

  Damon Courtenay died on the morning of April Fool’s Day. In this tribute to his son, Bryce Courtenay lays bare the suffering behind this young man’s life. Damon’s story is one of lifelong struggle, his love for Celeste, the compassion of family, and a fight to the end for integrity.

  A testimony to the power of love, April Fool’s Day is also about understanding: how when we confront our worst, we can become our best.

  This life-affirming book will change the way you think.

  Tandia sat waiting anxiously for the fight to begin between the man she loved the most and the man she hated the most in the world.

  Tandia is a child of Africa: half Indian, half African, beautiful and intelligent, she is only sixteen when she is first brutalised by the police. Her fear of the white man leads her to join the black resistance movement, where she trains as a terrorist.

  With her in the fight for justice is the one white man Tandia can trust, the welterweight champion of the world, Peekay. Now he must fight their common enemy in order to save both their lives.

  First with your head and then with your heart . . .

  To Peekay, a seven-year-old boy who dreams of being the welterweight champion of the world, this is a piece of advice that he will carry with him throughout his life.

  Born in a South Africa divided by racism and hatred, this one small boy will come to lead all the tribes of Africa. And in a final conflict with his childhood enemy, the Judge, Peekay will fight to the death for justice.

  Bryce Courtenay’s classic bestseller is a story of the triumph of the human spirit – a spellbinding tale for all ages.