The Spider's Parlour

A man can do the best and the worst things for love.

Lucian Finlay is the owner of The Fountain Hotel; five star, deluxe, exclusive. Lucian is the embodiment of his hotel; he is the epitome of style and elegance.

He is despicable.

His assistant Pasha Hayne has the personality of a negative force field and a penchant for badly co-ordinated outfits. Pasha takes care of things quietly and efficiently. The Fixer, the filter straining out dust particles that could clog up the smooth running of Lucian's ambitions.

Lucian's next ambition is to build a casino in the heart of Hillview, an expanding working class suburb west of Sydney. This is where the money is, a vast volume of it contained within the ever growing population, a dollar for every head a hundred times over.

Lucian's roots began in Hillview. He'd grown up there, had nurtured his ambitions there – before they'd kicked him out, ostracised him for his debased and degenerate behaviour.

But now he was back, and Hillview would soon know it, and he would build his casino on the land they had marked with his blood all those decades ago.

But Mayor Valerie Copeland was a problem, she wasn't on the same page as Lucian, she wasn't his type of people. Lucian would have to get The Fixer onto the job and filter out this small but annoying dust particle.

But in the meantime Lucian's head is full of Deanna, a young woman half his age he'd met by chance and Lucian finds himself besotted, in love, his hotel, his casino plans taking a back seat to this latest ambition, to make Deanna his. Which shouldn't be a problem, except her fiancé Trevor might not be so keen on the idea. Another dust particle that would have to be removed.

There's a growing backlog of dust particles to be filtered out and Pasha may need to call on the unique skills of M and N to help him out.

The Spider's Parlour is a dark, romantic thriller filled with violence and evil deeds - and a liberal dose of black humour.

There are no gratuitous sex scenes.