Overview

In Melbourne, the most dangerous crimes are the ones everyone agrees not to name. When a respected professor is found dead in his own library, the scene looks almost ceremonial: shelves of rare books, a door that should have stayed closed, and a city already rehearsing the polite version of events. Homicide detective Samir Barzani, known for his crumpled suit, battered Ford, and unnerving attention to detail, does not believe in polite versions. He believes in what happened. A rare poison is missing from a private greenhouse. A handful of witnesses speak too carefully. A sealed ""compact"" from years ago starts to surface, a pact that protected reputations while children paid the price. The deeper Barzani digs, the more the case shifts from a single death into a living network of privilege, favours, and fear. People who built their lives on being untouchable begin to realise Barzani is not here to negotiate. He is here to remember everything. The House on Briar Lane is a tense, atmospheric instalment in the Barzani detective noir series, blending classic mystery structure with modern grit. As pressure rises and the city closes ranks, Barzani must decide how much truth Melbourne is willing to face, and what justice should look like when the law is not enough. Dark, sharp, and relentlessly human, this is a murder mystery where the killer may be powerful, but the detective is patient, stubborn, and impossible to buy.

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9781764392044

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Robert G. Pranic is an Australian author and the creator of the Samir Barzani detective noir series. His crime fiction is grounded, modern, and sharply human: stories where influence travels through boardrooms, back lanes, and polite conversation, and where the real violence often happens before anyone bleeds. Set in Melbourne, the Barzani novels fuse classic mystery structure with noir intensity, delivering layered suspects, buried histories, and endings that feel earned rather than convenient. Pranic's work is driven by a simple obsession: how truth survives in places designed to bury it. That obsession shapes his protagonist as well. Detective Samir Barzani is not flashy, not loud, and not interested in being liked. He is patient, observant, and difficult to intimidate, a man who reads rooms the way other people read headlines. Across the series, Pranic explores justice, complicity, and the private cost of doing the right thing when the city would prefer you did nothing at all. The Barzani series is available in paperback and ebook.

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