'The Call of the Southern Cross' is a romance-adventure book written by John Sandes. The story follows Sydney Verner, the long-nosed young officer, who happened to be a lieutenant in the 12th Light Dragoons, and who was passionately fond of hunting.

In the tradition of Cormac McCarthy and Flannery O’Connor, Bill Cheng’s Southern Cross the Dog is an epic literary debut in which the bonds between three childhood friends are upended by the Great Mississippi Flood of 1927. In its aftermath, one young man must choose between the lure of the future and the claims of the past. Having lost virtually everything in the fearsome storm—home, family, first love—Robert Chatham embarks on an odyssey that takes him through the deep South, from the desperation of a refugee camp to the fiery and raucous brothel Hotel Beau-Miel and into the Mississippi hinterland, where he joins a crew hired to clear the swamp and build a dam. Along his journey he encounters piano-playing hustlers, ne’er-do-well Klansmen, well-intentioned whores, and a family of fur trappers, the L’Etangs, whose very existence is threatened by the swamp-clearing around them. The L’Etang brothers are fierce and wild but there is something soft about their cousin Frankie, possibly the only woman capable of penetrating Robert’s darkest places and overturning his conviction that he’s marked by the devil. Teeming with language that renders both the savage beauty and complex humanity of our shared past, Southern Cross the Dog is a tour de force that heralds the arrival of a major new voice in fiction.

Patricia Cornwell has a sixth sense about the men and women in blue. In Hornet's Nest, her page-turning novel about crime and police in Charlotte, North Carolina, Cornwell moved behind the badges of these real-life heroes to uncover flesh-and-blood characters who strode through her pages to reveal vulnerable, passionate, brave, sometimes doubting, always fascinating figures. In Southern Cross, Cornwell takes us even closer to the personal and professional lives of big-city police, in a story of corruption, scandal, and robberies that escalate to murder. This time, her setting is Richmond, Virginia, where Charlotte Police Chief Judy Hammer has been brought by an NIJ grant to clean up the police force. Reeling from the recent death of her husband, and resented by the police force, city manager, and mayor of Richmond, Hammer is joined by her deputy chief Virginia West and rookie Andy Brazil on the most difficult assignment of her career. In the face of overwhelming public scrutiny, the trio must bring truth, order, and sanity to a city in trouble.

Fervency, exhilaration, trepidation and death face Collin Farley, a young Colorado rancher, who flew his aircraft through its paces in the skies over the South Pacific against overwhelming Japanese forces during the early days of World War II. The sound of aircraft engines and the firing of the 37mm canon vibrate in his ears. Tender moments under the stars on the beach of the Coral Sea where he finds love during the throes of war wrench his heart, yet the camaraderie on a Pacific island maintains his sanity. From the shooting down the private plane of Admiral Yamamoto, the master-planner of Pearl Harbor attack, to viewing performances of the Swan Lake in Melbourne, Australia, to attending high level meetings with Generals MacArthur and Kenney, the reader is swept back to 1942-43. Emotions, loves and passions soar high over the azure waters of the Solomon Sea and in the Grand Opera House with the performances of Antoinette de la Fevbre. The men and women of the Fifth Air Force lived these campaigns, loved under the Southern Cross and died in the blue waters of the Coral Sea. This dynamic epic saga explicitly comes alive through the pages of this novel.

Now boarding: Southern Cross, tanker flight 73 to Titan. Alex Braith is tracing her sister's steps to the refinery moon, hoping to collect her remains and find some answers. The questions keep coming though„and they lead her down a path of intrigue, betrayal, and galactic horror. Collects SOUTHERN CROSS #1-6.

Under the Southern Cross, the eighth book in the Brothers Series and the fourth in the Shamrocks Saga, continues the story begun in Shamrocks in the Heather with the adventures of the rapidly maturing younger members of the Quigley clan. World War II is now in full swing and the Quigley cousins (by whatever name they're known) volunteer for duty in the armed forces: Andrew, Finn and Doug in the RAF, Dennis in the Royal Navy and Geordie in the Army. Roarke, trapped in Australia by the outbreak of war, joins the coastwatchers in the Solomon Islands. This job, vital to the war effort and extremely dangerous, keep Martin, Anne and the twins on tenterhooks. Whether due to old age or the toll taken by the stress of war, the family suffers many deaths. The younger generation suffers greatly as well as they perform their various stints in the military. In the meantime, the demon inhabiting the soul of Adolph Hitler is beginning to believe the Nazis are no longer going to win the war. He takes desperate and sometimes foolish measures to try to rectify the deteriorating situation. Lucifer, ever practical, decides to hedge his bet by looking at Stalin as a new would-be ally in his war to establish the Rule of Chaos. The Spear of Destiny will play a role in the outcome of the war and many forces are determined to gain control of the mystical weapon. What no one counts on is the interference of the Quigley twins. Dora and Dosia are set on reclaiming the Spear for its original owner. While a vicious war turns London into matchsticks and mainland Europe into hell-on-earth, a semi-normal life goes on. People, Quigleys included, marry and have children. Their traveling is curtailed by shortages of fuel; their gatherings are more subdued with less food and fewer gifts but a semblance of normalcy is stubbornly adhered to. So, the battle between good and evil goes on. On one side is the Prince of Hell and his faithful (?) Lieutenant Beelzebub. Or is he faithful? He's beginning to develop a reluctant admiration for the twins and even begins to like them. On the other side are the Quigleys, their Angels and the two wild-cards: Dora and Dosia. What happens to the Spear will have great bearing on the future of mankind although no one really realizes that and the twins want to keep it that way. They know this is not the last time they'll have to face and fight Lucifer and his minions but they take one day at a time, one challenge at a time while whispering the "Quigley lullaby" "Whisht now, whisht." This is not a religious book nor meant to endorse or promote any type of belief. It is intended to provide a verbal roller-coaster ride. Plus, I've grown to quite like The Old Man. Enjoy!