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Questionable characters are the characters we can't define, forget, resist or feel entirely comfortable with. They challenge our values and beliefs and surprise us with new imaginings of ethos. This issue of Southerly draws together a rich and eclectic range of essays, poetry and fiction. Luigi Gussago argues that Peter Carey's histories present a challenge to the univocal false-consciousness of Australian colonial history, while Debra Adelaide's Reading Australia essay on Thea Astley's Drylands argues that Astley draws "text, author and reader into an embrace so intimate they are barely distinguishable". The detective fiction "pot-boilers" of Shane Martin, AKA, George Johnston, are considered in a new light by Paul Genoni and Tanya Dalziell. Martin's detective figure, Challis, "the moon-drifted leprechaun", is a questionable character, par excellence. All this, plus Southerly's usual feast of the best new poetry and fiction from Australia and New Zealand, and reviews of the same.