Coral's Rules

CORAL'S RULES BLURB When Dixon Tracy was a kid, he hated the weatherman. He was the one who told his mother to send him to school carrying a raincoat, a woollen jumper, and gumboots. The predicted rain never came. Worst of all was that his father still trusted the weatherman. He was a farmer who endured seven years of drought, holding on to the farm, believing in the "science" of the weatherman. Year after year there was a promise of rain, the promise of a good harvest, a good El Niño, only to watch everything destroyed by a cyclone, or a drought that never ended. Dixon and family moved to Sydney, and from that time on Dixon became obsessed with his project of predicting the weather. A system that would see into future weather events months ahead with ninety percent accuracy. Unfortunately, no one with any scientific knowledge believed this was possible, just Dixon Tracy. Dixon had one advantage: he had savant syndrome, able to solve mathematical problems that were needed to predict weather patterns. At university Dixon's savant syndrome landed him in trouble, he stood out as a freak, a boofhead, a nerd, until he met Coral. She had the experience of helping her autistic brother, and now she wanted to help Dixon. For although he could solve "unsolvable" mathematical problems he was bamboozled by everyday life. Coral wrote out her rules, explaining how he could pass as normal . . . well almost. Chinese agents hacked into the Bureau of Meteorology where they discovered Dixon's Weather Project, and they thought it was worth investigating. If Dixon's system did work, it would be worth not billions, but trillions of dollars. It could be used to aid world food production, prepare for hurricanes, storms, and droughts. But in evil hands it would be used to seize food, water supplies, and medical equipment. The Chinese government was not kindly, sympathetic, or willing to negotiate. They wanted the full details Dixon's invention, and they intended to get them by tricks or brute force. This brilliant new novel by Marcus Clark comes loaded with surprises you didn't expect.