A HOT DAY in old Adelaide, the only sounds being the air-con and the books yammering to themselves – as I like to think. Before the sun rose too high, I had rearranged the display in the shop window, this week’s theme being crime, true and fiction. Barely had I finished when I heard running in the street outside. I reached under the desk for my cricket bat, useful even in a second-hand bookshop.

The door burst open.