Books by Andrez Bergen

Teenager Mitzi hits Heropa with 9mm pistols blazing - targeted for recruitment, betrayal and assassination.

While chain-smoking Roy Scherer might aspire to fill loafers better worn by Marlowe, Hammer and Spade, reality wears such a whim thin. His clients veer from immortal to monster-brow-beaten, and he's up against foes that howl at the moon, one case of Lazarus Syndrome, dismembered talking heads, and a vengeful Japanese spirit. Scherers only allies? Ditzy, bookish assistant Suzie Miller, her gung-ho, mostly inebriated father Art, an ageless ballet dancer with martial-arts skills, and a Smith & Wesson boasting silver-plated rounds.

Shes a disturbed, quiet girl, but Mina wants to do some good out there. Its just that the world gets in the way. This is Australia in the 1980s, a haven for goths and loners, where a coming-of-age story can only veer into a murder mystery.

Heropa: A vast, homogenized city patrolled by heroes and populated by adoring masses. A pulp fiction fortress of solitude for crime-fighting team the Equalizers, led by new recruit Southern Cross - a lifetime away from the rain-drenched, dystopic metropolis of Melbourne. Who, then, is killing the great Capes of Heropa? In this paired homage to detective noir from the 1940s and the 60s Marvel age of trail-blazing comic books, Andrez Bergen gloriously redefines the mild-mannered superhero novel.