Almost 55 Degrees in the Shade: Environmental War, #3

By Noel Gardner

 

Silent and disparate groups counter a sophisticated mining conspiracy so far reaching there is no time but now.

 

50 Degrees in the Shade - if you can get some - is a comedic plot based read, laced with vigilante justice and plenty of characters to remember. The climate crisis is worsening and extreme weather events are everyone's problem in this satirical crime fiction story. 

 

Mining companies are moving unabated on the Australian mainland. A trenchant resistance group wants gas exports to fall off a cliff so NET ZERO happens. Into that mix steps a number of Aboriginal renegades seeking reprieve from rampant scarring of the earth.

 

At the centre of everything is Warunga - an outback town promoting off-the-grid to others. The citizens want a progressive energy future. They become pitched against elements of the international reinsurance industry who are backing carbon emitters and reduction in natural disaster payouts.

 

The fight is hampered on all sides. A Gold Coast enclave of Chinese Intelligence and influence peddlers want to secure their energy investment. A cabal of Balkan misogynists with assassination dna are hired to curtail the environmental push. A trumped-up religious cult sets up on prime agricultural land - fronting a slush fund for a smug British elite. On the ground the Federal Police are working both sides of the fence.

 

Things are helped by a group of Indigenous women who dispose of violent men and sell soft-goods back to the chastened to build schools. Environmental and Social War is in the air.

 

The story starts when Claudia Nirvana and Boris Broad from La Foreste meet in an outback watering-hole to discuss borrowed time. They observe an observer and quickly the dry bone environment is worth fighting for again. 

 

With more murder than you poke a stick at in this noir takedown - 50 Degrees in the Shade will keep you guessing.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Noel Gardner
• Release date: Mar 5, 2024
• ISBN: 9798224939664

Noel Gardner

Noel Anthony Gardner lives in Brisbane, Australia with his family, not far from a pub with an obscene number of replica dot paintings distributed by what looks like an Anglo-Celtic wholesaler in Surrey Hills. Learn more at noelgardnernovels.com

Book preview

1

CHAPTER 1

OPINION HOTEL MONDAY NIGHT

The Opinion Hotel may have been renovated but in the back bar held over for guest bookers, a thin beam of light penetrated the cladding. A small mess on the floor looked like a scorpion had fried in the heat. Passers-through could expect a wildlife dimension from a hotel born out of discussion.

Boris crossed his legs and graciously accepted the smoky herbaceous martini Claudia had brought back to the table.

You never seem to sweat Claudia - I can only imagine your enzymes.

It’s staying away from the city . . . great to see you again - as in alive, Boris. How did you fake death? We heard you were split in half by the seedy Lozozo - the lone wolf in Rubenovoff’s goon squad. Word abounds that he fired a Glisteri launcher in your direction. I can honestly say - I apologise in the extreme because we weren’t far away when it happened - we just didn’t know. Claudia was so happy.

I wish his goon didn’t have a name. The Wulgum women found me before the night remained dark forever. They submerged me in a paste they had in the Team Spider bus. I’ve been living it up at Camp Wulgum working on an online video course for carbon sufferers.

I’ve heard the place is now a tranquil retreat - built on the bones of violent men.

It’s been a rustic retirement of sorts with a view of some very productive activities. All the men have been buried in the concrete footings of the new school which is now flourishing under the current headmaster. It gets, even more, business savvy - every dried scrotum collected has been sold in China as an exotic trinket pouch. They are printing money.

We thought you were gone. Can I get some of that paste? I see it cures more than puffy eye-sockets?

It’s known as Gomba Gooo. Have you heard of Umbugo? Boris leaned forwards to avoid a horsefly. Umbugo was a revered elder near Rockhampton in the 50s. Long story reduced - he dragged a slave trader for a hundred miles behind a tractor then pureed his carcass and mixed the result with Atashuia Cornova sap - producing a venereal paste that cured white settler-induced diseases. I got the evolutionary refined upgrade which can regenerate organs - I got lucky."

What must have been another guest entered the area and seemed concerned with seating.

Boris had one more thing to add. You know I like a good operational mop-up and none was had until now - it’s part of dying. He began downing the martini as if more would be lined up. He wasn’t desperate but had been drinking Gomba extract for two years.

Claudia reflected. How are you going to play it now that the Gold Coast Police Service believes you were strewn all over the desert? Reportedly it was quite a service funeral.

I’ve picked up a few allies from those years at Southport Homicide. Tupilano made it out with a payout and half a missing leg. Now he is running a Gold Coast Surf Shop for prosthesis sufferers with a nifty salad outlet. I’ll be encouraging those friendships moving forwards. I heard the sausage roll intake in homicide has halved. Boris gestured for a refill.

Claudia wanted to get it out. I’ve picked up a job in Cairo.

Does Cairo equal the body parts trade? asked Boris.

I was hoping it wasn’t. Claudia had sadness for the exploited many. Fat infertile men preying on women from lesser means and organising the commodification of their organs. Can it get any worse?

Boris looked gaunt for a moment at the thought of the dispossessed living in squalid heat with no sanitation and the final indignity of being rounded up by greasy agents of doom.

Claudia continued. If you get some particulars on the export market to China we’ll be able to dish up some petrified Egyptian nut sacks. Could go gangbusters in trinket land.

Boris laughed. It’s a gainful employment month because I’ve been sent a brief. It all happens on the same fair land upon which we stand.

Do tell. What else have you been doing while all this COVID shit has been on? Claudia knew her answer.

Boris was contre as he considered life without causes and false identity. I’ve recently been held up at El Rancho Del Mar. I’m also planning to set up a desert variety horticultural wonderland. Even if it goes against the grain stumbling onto a hard luck property sale.

Claudia was aware of the location and the circumstances - owned by a father and son who kept to themselves but struck bad luck when they were dumped in the vat of their water truck by Rubenovoff’s crew."

Claudia wanted another drink almost as much as she wanted to hear what Boris had in his saddlebag on the Australian mainland. As she selected the right credit card and headed for the bar, she caught sight of the would-be guest as he rounded a raw timber column. She knew that melon but wasn’t sure. An Anglo-Asian profile doesn’t make someone a conspirator but this was a tourist who missed the flight to Sydney. She went the way he had gone.

There were five vehicles in the annexed guest car park along with bad lighting. Between her vehicle and another was the shadowed melon lighting up a cigarette in the night. He was using the phone. She got a snapshot of the past. She remembered the connection in a sickly second and went down like a cat and moved around the car park on four limbs below fender height.

With the intent of many she flew a foot sideways and exploded the cigarette smoker’s kneecap and cartilage then forced his phone arm down in an arc and drove the phone straight up into his pillow sack. He went down inhaling everything. As he coughed she opened the door of her rig beside, then slammed his head until it was butterscotch. Before he hit the ground fully she rammed him into the boot and brought the lid down before he was ready.

There wasn’t a sound.

Back with Boris, Claudia continued. I can’t stay. Did you know Tung was eaten by magpies - well now I’ve got a member of her organisation in the boot of the Camry - so I’d better take off - I’m thinking northwest.

Boris said. Will he get the termite mound treatment? Then he got faintly melancholy. Is Wendy still around - I’m going to need good staff for this next thing. Will I tell La Foreste you hate Cairo? I have two cops back at The Gold Coast who can help and maybe Tupilano. I do miss Spalantes Ginger Emporium on 6th."

Boris had largely loved his time as head of Gold Coast Homicide but the end date had arrived at the battle of Flagstaff. A property owned by British superannuation interests which had returned to normal operating procedures as if no blood had been let. With Boris, the