Books by Des Hunt

Twelve-year-old Cassi Whelan and her dad have just moved into a repaired house on the edge of Christchurchs Red Zone. Although Cassi was only four when earthquakes decimated Christchurch, her memories still haunt her. An obsessive runner, she finds the wide-open spaces of the cle...ared Red Zone suit her perfectly. However, she becomes suspicious about strange comings and goings at the broken-down house next door. A chance meeting with a boy who lives on the other side of the house who is a tech geek leads to them setting up a surveillance system to investigate whats happening... and the adventure begins.
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When Tyler Matthews wins a national ecological competition for a place on the Nature South Eco Tour, he has no idea where it will lead him. After he travels to the bottom of New Zealand's South Island to join the tour, he meets the other two winners, Hine and Mandy and finds hims...elf in a maze of mystery and adventure. Ages 9-12.
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"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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"Sent to live with his grandmother in Hastings after his father is jailed, Matt becomes the victim of bad friends and false accusations. Sent off on a military-style school camp to the wilds of Lake Waikaremoana, Matt again gets in trouble for something he didn't do, and is unjus...tly punished. Not allowed to join his school friends on their activities, he spends time alone down by the lake where he discovers a massive eel. Unfortunately, news gets out about the eel Matt has nicknamed Elsa, and the class bad-boy, Cameron, is determined to kill it. Matt is determined not to let him ... but then, following a night of torrential rain, catastrophe strikes the camp and Matt ends up saving Cam's life."--Publisher information.
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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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