Australian Crime

In the autumn of 1992, two young women students at Melbourne University went to the police claiming that they had been indecently assaulted at a party. The man they accused was the head of their co-ed residential college. The controversial book that Helen Garner wrote about the resulting Ormond College sexual harassment case caused a social media storm. Prominent feminists were outraged at Garner's perceived support for the man involved, but many saw her approach a necessary and much welcome nuance towards the power dynamic between men and women.

In April 2006, fifteen-year-old Oliver went hiking to the lookout on Burning Mountain - and vanished without trace.

Tessa is a thoroughbred. A brilliant young barrister. She has worked her way up from a working-class background to be at the top of her game: defending, cross-examining and lighting up the shadows of doubt in any case. Her masterful line of questioning in the courtroom has netted Tessa win after win, freeing men accused of rape and sexual assault. As controversial as it is, this is her job - it's just about the facts and who can game the system. Working late one night, Tessa falls into a casual relationship with Julian, a coworker, an attorney who comes from an elite, wealthy family.

A gripping whodunit with an unexpected finale. Jack Hamma, Private Detective, meets the rich and beautiful Katrina de Medici Crest. Jack lives to regret that meeting. He wakes up in a police lock up with no recollection of the night before and under arrest for murder. Jack must untangle a web of intrigue full of twists, turns and jumbled evidence to clear his name. 'So Jack Hamma wakes up in jail where the coffee is disgusting and the inmates worse... and you just know he's going to escape but then it's not what we expect . I'm only up to page 38, but there have already been 3 major plot ...

My name's Ernest Cunningham. I used to be a fan of reading Golden Age murder mysteries, until I found myself with a haphazard career getting stuck in the middle of real-life ones. I'd hoped, this Christmas, that any self-respecting murderer would kick their feet up and take it easy over the holidays. I was wrong.

Sydney is full of climate refugees. Food and water insecurity have created tension. There is poverty, suspicion and cultural disharmony. A world of have and have nots. In this environment a 5 year old girl from the Floodline, Casey, disappears. Then the body of an auditor from a development company is found burnt in a car on the site where Casey disappeared. Are they related?

Your baby daughter is kidnapped, what do you do? Private Detective Jack Hamma's world falls apart. His wife walks out on him, his business collapses and his baby daughter is kidnapped! Jack needs every bit of his legendary resourcefulness and every inch of his cool head to overcome what fate is about to unleashed. A fast moving Australia outback adventure. ‘ Another cracker with Jack Hamma as the action hero.’ ‘I have read all the Jack Hamma books as they came out and have enjoyed them all.’ ‘Gripped and held my interest from the start.’ ‘Whilst liking all the Jack Hamma books...

Love him or loathe him, Ned Kelly has been at the heart of Australian culture and identity since he and his gang were tracked down in bushland by the Victorian police and came out fighting, dressed in bulletproof iron armour made from farmers' ploughs. Historians still disagree over virtually every aspect of the eldest Kelly boy's brushes with the law. Did he or did he not shoot Constable Fitzpatrick at their family home?

After the heists gone wrong in Kickback and Paydirt, Wyatt is further down on his luck and deeper in with the Outfit, a network of organised criminals whose attention he's tried hard to avoid. A risky job in a Brisbane bank and the return of a femme fatale add further complications to Wyatt's increasingly desperate situation and force him to decide who he is and who he cares about.

For the last decade, the small mountain town of Edenville in Victoria's high country has been haunted by the horrific murders of five hikers up on Jagged Ridge. Also found dead near the scene was Bill 'Creeper' Durant, a bushland loner, expert deer-hunter, and a man with a known reputation for stalking campers . . .Conclusion: murder-suicide. Case closed. But as the ten-year anniversary of the massacre draws near, Detective Constable Sally White - the only officer at Edenville's modest police station - finds herself drawn into the dark world of the notorious Durant family.

The impeccably dressed Miss Kate Cocks might look more like a schoolmistress than a policewoman, but don't let that fool you. She's a household name, wrangling wayward husbands, seeing through deceptive clairvoyants, and rescuing young women (whether they like it or not) with the help of a five-foot cane and her sassy junior constable, Ethel Bromley. When shop assistant Dora Black is found dead on a city beach, Miss Cocks and Ethel are ordered to stay out of the investigation and leave it to the men. But when Dora's workmate goes missing soon after, the women suspect something sinister.

This is a heart-wrenching collection of true stories told through the eyes of family members who have experienced the trauma of a missing loved one. It follows their journeys from the desperate searches in the first days, through the Police investigations and, in many cases, the heartbreak as the years roll by without any news. These stories are just a glimpse into ten of the thousands of missing persons still out there, waiting to be found.

Under the fierce heat of the Australian outback, the laws of nature serve a rough justice. When a man vanishes deep in the Northern Territory, local police write it off. But his family suspect otherwise—and when the call for help goes out, Ben Hope and Jeff Decker are there to hear it. Ben’s instincts, honed by years of Special Forces missions, soon see the story told by a trail of bullet casings, rumours of a missing map and a lethal cocktail of greed, power and money.

During a broiling heatwave, the inner circle of a high-profile charity attend a critical meeting at White Ash Ridge, a small hotel nestled in the Australian wilderness. As the temperature rises, a body is found lying in the thick bush, bludgeoned to death. One of the four remaining guests is a murderer - but who, and why, is a mystery. Detective Dana Russo knows the national spotlight will be sharply focused on the case. The charity was formed when the founders' teenage son was killed after intervening in a vicious assault - sparking public outrage and a damning verdict on the investigation.

Remote north Queensland has long been a region of Australia that has attracted pioneers, adventurers, eccentrics, and a ragtag assortment of knockabout characters who seek a place to be themselves, to be accepted, and to bypass the rules of modern society – and sometimes to break those rules. Author and investigative journalist, Robert Reid, has chosen 15 fascinating stories selected from his many years of interviews and reporting in Australia’s north.

Tara Costigan was the woman next door. A hard worker. Quick to laugh and easy to like. She was happy, confident, strong. A woman who always looked after herself and her kids. Close with her family and her friends, she was much loved. Then, in 2013, she met Marcus Rappel. A local tradie, he was charming and sincere, they dated and fell in love. That should have been the end of a happy-ever-after story. But for Tara, it was much uglier. And for her family it would be devastating.

The hand of fate, that had torn their lives apart, is now set to make their worlds collide once again. BOUND TO SARAH will set you on a roller-coaster of emotions, graphic in description and action packed. This story is brutal and shockingly unpredictable. In the year 1823, at the height of the British Empire and the colonization of Australia, Pat Roche sits on board a convict ship, sentenced for the term of his natural life to the New Colonies. All hope of ever seeing his wife and child again appeared to be lost. The ship is a fraught with tension under such a strict military guard; with ...

On June 15, 1862, a gang of bushrangers held up a gold escort at Eugowra, just east of Forbes, NSW. They escaped with a pile of cash and 77 kilograms of gold, worth about $10 million today. It remains the largest gold robbery in Australian history. In this riveting recreation of the events, James Phelps finally tells the full story of how Frank Gardiner, Ben Hall, John O'Meally, Johnny Gilbert, Henry Manns, Alexander Fordyce, John Bow and Dan Charters planned and executed the robbery - and what happened to all that gold.

She is an iconic member of the British Royal Family, beloved for her beauty and charitable works, resented by her former husband and his mother, the Queen of England. When a bomb explodes aboard her holiday yacht, British intelligence turns to one man to track down her killer: legendary spy and assassin Gabriel Allon. Gabriel's target is Eamon Quinn, a master bomb maker and mercenary of death who sells his services to the highest bidder. Fortunately Gabriel does not pursue him alone; at his side is Christopher Keller, a British commando turned professional assassin.

A notorious unmarked track through outback Australia, the 'Wire' crosses slabs of lawless land, body-dumping grounds and mobile phone blackspots. Harvey Buck is certainly desperate. Racing to be with his dying girlfriend, he encounters Clare Holland, whose car has broken down. He offers the hapless traveller a ride. And then their nightmare begins. The pair are ambushed by a vengeful crew - and strapped into bomb vests. As part of a deadly game, Harvey and Clare are forced to commit a series of increasingly murderous missions - or be blown to smithereens.