Books by Des Hunt

"Inseparable best friends Dean and Pelly frequently get up to no good. Dean is a dare-devil, and Pelly always seems to end up going along for the ride. Dean's amateur bomb-making is one step too far, and is soon followed by a bombshell of another sort, Pelly's parents are shiftin...g the family back to New Zealand. Via email and Skype they arrange for Dean to visit in the school holidays. In the meantime, Pelly and his new friend Afi have stumbled upon a drug ring operating between their school and near Afi's beach bach. The pair are well on the way to collecting the evidence they need to bust the operation, when Dean joins them from Australia. Pelly might have changed, but devil-may-care Dean most certainly hasn't. In no time at all, Dean's bomb-making obsession threatens not only the investigation but also lives"--Publisher information. Suggested level: primary, intermediate.
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Jake lives with his father in a remote part of the Wairarapa, where he can surf and watch the whales. But then Jake's dad begins a relationship with a new partner, who moves in with her daughter Stephanie, and at the same time a local photographer starts stalking their next door ...neighbour Milton Summer, an international rock celebrity- and Jake's peaceful life erupts into volence and deceit. An when a whale and her calf get into trouble on the treacherous coast, the history of Whale Pot Bay seems doomed to repeat itself unless Jake, Milton and Stephanie can survive the deadly tide.
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"Logan's grandfather grew up near Palmerston North in the 1940s. One day, he and his sister Mavis spotted a beautiful and unusual bird in the kowhai tree outside their house: it was a huia bird, which was believed to be extinct. The bird flew away, and in an attempt to photograph... it they managed to track it deep into the Manawatu Gorge. It was a dangerous journey through two train tunnels, made even more so when the horrible Carson boys got wind of their mission and decided to try and find the huia first so they could shoot it and sell its highly valuable feathers. More than 60 years later, 11-year-old Logan has returned to the Manawatu with Grandpop and a scientist to try and solve the mystery of what happened to the huia that he and Mavis found all those years ago. Grandpop must remember all the details of the events of many years ago. Can the group rely on his version of the events, and find the huia's final resting place? Will the huia still be there, and will its DNA still be valuable for scientific research into NZ's native fauna? And whoever would have thought that those Carsons are still living in the area and on the loose, and still up to their nasty tricks?"--Publisher information. Suggested level: primary, intermediate, junior secondary.
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A race against time to save rare birds on the cliff tops of Taioroa Head - a race, that if lost could cause the extinction of the species ...

A contemporary action story for children set in the gold-mining ghost town of Charleston, 30 km south of Westport. When 12 year old Tony and his nomadic mum arrive in Charleston, Tony is desperately hoping that this might finally be the place they settle down. He finds a unique e...nvironment and an interesting bunch of people to get to know - as well as a gathering mystery.
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