And De Fun Don't Done (72 page)

‘I see yu too, Les,' said Esme.

Norton shuffled in behind some other tourists in the queue. ‘I'll write to you care of the school.'

‘You promise, Les?' said Esme.

‘Yeah. I promise.'

Next thing it was Norton's turn. He placed his backpack on the conveyor belt to go through the X-ray machine as a woman in a blue uniform came over to him, holding a portable metal detector and a small plastic bowl for him to put his watch in, and any jewellery he might have, while he walked through the main metal detector. Les gave the girl a smile, removed his old silver Timex and placed it in the bowl, then took off the two junky rings he'd bought from Esme and Delta and placed them next to his watch. While the girl in the blue uniform watched indifferently, Les undid the top two buttons of his blue shirt, reached under his white T-shirt, removed the junky gold chain with the jewel-encrusted Spanish cross from round his neck and dropped that in the bowl with his watch and the two rings, then walked through the metal detector. Round the other side, the woman quickly ran the portable metal detector over him then handed him back his things. Les put them on in exactly the same order as he had taken them off. After doing up his shirt, Les picked up his backpack and got ready to walk towards his plane. He'd just turned when he heard a girl's voice call out.

‘Hey, Les!'

Norton turned around slowly. ‘Yes Esme?' he smiled.

‘And de fun don't done?'

Les thought for a moment then blew her a kiss. ‘You never know, Esme. You just never know what might happen. See you, mate.'

Les slung his backpack over his shoulder, melted in with the other passengers and walked towards his plane.

You Wouldn't Be Dead For Quids
is the book that launched Les Norton as Australia's latest cult hero.

Follow Les, the hillbilly from Queensland, as he takes on the bouncers, heavies, hookers and gamblers of Sydney's Kings Cross, films a TV ad for Bowen Lager in Queensland and gets caught up with a nymphomaniac on the Central Coast of New South Wales.

In one of the funniest books of the past decade you will laugh yourself silly and be ducking for cover as Les unleashes himself on Sydney's unsuspecting underworld.

 

Les Norton is back in town!

It all began in
You Wouldn't Be Dead For Quids…
And now there's more of it in
The Real Thing
.

Trouble seems to follow Les Norton like a blue heeler after a mob of sheep.

Maybe it's his job.

Being a bouncer at the infamous and illegal Kelly Club in Kings Cross isn't the stuff a quiet life is made of.

Maybe it's his friends.

Like Price Galese, the urbane and well-connected owner of the Kelly Club, or Eddie Salita who learnt to kill in Vietnam, or Reg Campbell, struggling artist and dope dealer.

But, then again, maybe Les is just unlucky.

Robert G. Barrett's five stories of Les Norton and the Kelly Club provide an entertaining mix of laughter and excitement, and an insight into the Sydney underworld; a world often violent and cynical, but also with its fair share of rough humour and memorable characters.

 

Les Norton's back in town!

There's no two ways about Les Norton — the carrot- topped country boy who works as a bouncer at Sydney's top illegal casino. He's tough and he's mean. He's got a granite jaw, fists like hams, and they say the last time he took a tenner from his wallet Henry Lawson blinked at the light.

Lethal but loyal, he's always good for a laugh. In this, the third collection of Les Norton adventures, Les gets his boss off the hook. But not without the help of the boys from Binjiwunyawunya.

Having got over that, Les finds himself in a spot of bother in Long Bay Gaol then in a lot more bother on a St. Kilda tram in Melbourne…

Robert G. Barrett's Les Norton stories have created a world as funny as Damon Runyon's. If you don't know Les Norton, you don't know Australia in the eighties.

 

‘I wonder who that red-headed bloke is? He's come into town out of nowhere, flattened six of the best fighters in Yurriki plus the biggest man in the valley. Then he arrives at my dance in an army uniform drinking French champagne and imported beer like it's going out of style. And ups and leaves with the best young sort in the joint… Don't know who he is. But he's not bloody bad.'

Les Norton is at it again!

Les thought they were going to be the easiest two weeks of his life.

Playing minder for a young member of the Royal Family called Peregrine Normanhurst III sounded like a deadset snack. So what if he was a champagne- guzzling millionaire Hooray Henry and his godfather was the Attorney General of Australia? Les would keep Peregrine out of trouble… So what if he was on the run from the IRA? They'd never follow him to Australia…

Robert G. Barrett's latest Les Norton adventure moves at breakneck speed from the corridors of power in Canberra to the grimy tenements of Belfast, scorching the social pages of Sydney society and romping through the North Coast's plushest resorts to climax in a nerve-shattering, blood-spattered shootout on a survivalist fortress in the Tweed Valley.
The Godson
features Les Norton at his hilarious best, whatever he's up against — giant inbreds, earth mothers, Scandinavian au pair girls, jealous husbands, violent thugs and vengeful terrorists.

If you thought Australia's favourite son could get up to some outrageous capers in
You Wouldn't Be Dead For Quids, The Real Thing
and
The Boys from Binjiwunyawunya
, until you've read
The Godson
, you ain't read nothin' yet!

 

Okay, so it looks like the Kelly Club is finally closing down — it had to happen sooner or later. And it isn't as if Les Norton will starve. He has money snookered away, he owns his house, and his blue-chip investment — a block of flats in Randwick — must be worth a fortune by now. Except that the place is falling down, the council is reclaiming the land, there's been a murder in Flat 5, and the tenants are the biggest bunch of misfits since the Manson Family. And that's just the good news, because the longer Les owns the Blue Seas Apartments, the more money he loses.

This time Les Norton's really up against it.

But whilst he's trying to solve his financial problems, he still has time to fight hate-crazed roadies, sort out a drug deal after fighting a gang of bikies, help a feminist Balmain writer with some research she won't forget in a hurry, and get involved with Franulka, super-sexy leadsinger of an all-girl rock band, The Heathen Harlots.

And with the help of two ex-Romanian Securitate explosive experts, he might even be able to sort out his investment.

But can Les pull off the perfect crime? Of course — and why not throw the street party of the year at the same time?

Robert G. Barrett's latest Les Norton novel is probably no more outrageous than his previous ones.

But then again…

 

All Norton wanted was a quiet coffee and Sacher cake at the Hakoah club in Bondi, and to be left alone to sort out his troubled love life. How he let notorious conman Kelvin Kramer talk him up to Surfers Paradise for five days, Les will never know. Supposedly to mind KK and his massively boobed girlfriend, American model Crystal Linx, in Australia to promote her latest record. Though it did seem like a good idea at the time. Apart from the President of the United States arriving and Norton's domestic problems, there wasn't much keeping him in Sydney.

Norton went to the Gold Coast expecting some easy graft in the sun, an earn and possibly a little fresh romance. Les definitely got the earn. He certainly got the girl. But what Norton got in Surfers Paradise was trouble. In a size 40 Double-D cup.

 

All easy-going butcher, Bob Davis, wanted after his divorce was to get on with his job, have a few beers with his mates, and be left alone. But this was Sydney in the early eighties. The beginning of the AIDS epidemic, street gangs, gay bashings, murders.

When a gang of skinheads bashed Davo's old school friend to death simply because he was gay, and left Davo almost dead in an intensive care unit, they unleashed a crazed killer onto the city streets. Before the summer had ended, over thirty corpses had turned up in the morgue, leaving two bewildered detectives to find out where they were coming from.

Robert G. Barrett's latest book is not for the squeamish. Although written with lashings of black humour the action is chillingly brutal — a story of a serial killer bent on avenging himself on the street tribes of Sydney.
Davo's Little Something
proves conclusively why Robert G. Barrett, author of the Les Norton series, is one of Australia's most popular contemporary writers.