Jack Susko is enjoying a quiet life as the owner of a secondhand bookstore, preferably in the company of his cat rather than actual paying customers. But when Hammond Kasprowicz, a crabby but wealthy businessman, offers Jack some easy money, of course Jack doesn't turn down the offer. After all, what problem could there possibly be with locating as many copies as possible of the works of an obscure poet? And who cares what Hammond wants to do with them? For all that Jack cares, he could burn them. Which, in fact, is exactly what Hammond does. But very soon, books aren't the only things disappearing…

For once, Jack Susko is feeling pretty good: his secondhand bookshop is on the up, and the cops haven’t been around in ages. Even his cat, Lois, is being nice to him. Then one morning a beautiful woman knocks on Jack’s door and hands him an eviction notice. His former boss, a corrupt property developer, asks for help with a particular situation and won’t take no for an answer. Throw in an ex-lover, her jealous boyfriend, half-a-dozen Playboy bunnies, a Nazi Luger and, of course, the police, and it’s safe to say that Jack’s favourable winds are quickly turning a little rough. In his most thrilling and riotous adventure yet, De Luxe finds Jack Susko with all the odds against him … and nothing but bad cards to play.

After yet another slow week at the cash register, that fine purveyor of second-hand literature, Susko Books, is facing financial ruin. Jack Susko sets off to a gallery in Woollahra to scrape up some coin with the sale of an old art catalogue. With his usual panache and exquisite timing, he arrives just as De Groot Galleries is being done over by masked thieves. Along with a mysterious object from the safe, the robbers seize a valuable first edition from Jack’s bag, too. When the owner of the gallery doesn’t want to call the cops, Jack is offered a sizeable sum to keep silent: but when de Groot arrives at the bookshop with his heavy to renege on the deal, all bets are off. With an ease that almost constitutes a gift, Jack Susko finds himself at the centre of a world full of duplicity, lies and art theft.

Jack Susko is trying for a quiet life in his second-hand bookshop in downtown Sydney. It’s more tin mine than gold mine, yet it’s his and that’s something. But when a wealthy businessman hires Jack to locate some books for him, life starts to get a little more complicated. Soon he’s up to his neck in family secrets, corruption and murder, plunged into a world he thought he’d left behind. Making a play for the businessman’s beautiful daughter doesn’t help matters. And as the bodies start piling up, Jack can’t help but wonder when second-hand book dealing became so dangerous. A Deadly Business introduces a new crime hero who’s not a detective and whose motives aren’t always pure, but he’s sure got a talent for finding trouble.