Amnesia

Has a young Australian woman declared cyber war on the United States? (The Justice Department thinks so.) Or was her Angel Worm intended only to open the prison doors of those unfortunates detained by Australia's harsh immigration policies? Did America suffer collateral damage? Can she be extradited to a country with the death penalty? Is she innocent? Can she be saved? Enter her mother, the actress Celine Baillieux.

With Celine comes the outrageous Woody Townes, a Melbourne property developer, millionaire, and patron of left wing causes. Murray delivers half a million dollars bail to the court, appoints a distinguished lawyer, and hires an old mate to write a biography to vindicate the young woman.

The old mate is Felix Moore, known to his fellow journalists as Felix Moore-or-less correct. His politics are far too left. His grasp of reality is sometimes unreliable. He is a magnet for lawsuits. His career is over, and then he gets this chance. 'I had fought the good fight all my life,' he confesses, 'but I had also become an awful creature along the way.'

It will be our great good fortune to live inside Felix's comic, cowardly, angry, fundamentally humane character as he attempts to find redemption.

Amnesia is a masterful novel, both dark and funny, whose tangled roots drive deep into the denied history of the United States, the CIA, and its relationship with its old friend and client, Australia.