Book excerpt: The complete short stories of the bestselling author of Mallawindy and the Woody Creek series "Pure brilliance. This is a book to keep and treasure - you'll want to read it again and again." Sun-Herald At the beginning of her writing journey, Joy Dettman's charming, irascible, melancholy, wisecracking characters appeared in over twenty unique tales, many of which have won awards, many of which have never been published. Now, for the first time, Diamonds in the Mud and Other Stories is the complete collection of Joy Dettman's exquisite short stories. We meet an old coot in a rusty ute who picks up a hitchhiker, a neighbour reaches across the language divide to lend a helping hand, a grave digger might just have saved a young man's life, an exhausted farmer's wife lusts after a china cup, Granny Jordan is losing her marbles and an author is troubled by rats under the floorboards. Since Joy's first novel, Mallawindy, was published in 1998 she has attracted a growing number of readers who are entertained and shocked by her array of unforgettable characters populating the Australian landscape. "Dettman writes compulsively readable stories" The Age Fans of Rosalie Ham's The Dressmaker will love Joy Dettman.