Australian Crime

Meet our narrator: witty, nosy, professional weaver of lies - aka ghostwriter for the rich and famous - and now, lander of The Dream Assignment (that is, a politician's tell-all memoir). Enter Dorothy Gibson: recently toppled Presidential Candidate, aka that woman, the most talked-about person in the country right now (for the wrong reasons).

From madmen to matriarchs, stooges to heroes, eye-watering bungles to sweet justice - strap yourself in for a masterclass in storytelling from Australia's most formidable crime reporter. True crime icon John Silvester has been reporting on Australia's criminal underbelly for over forty years. Navigating the murky intersections between the lawmakers and lawbreakers, Silvester has drawn on a lifetime's work rubbing shoulders with the good guys, the bad guys and the downright dirty.

Ryan and Elsie Delaney don't accept the official line that their young daughter drowned on Santa Monica beach. Her body has never been found and their pleas for a proper investigation are rejected. So now the desperate pair are raining hellfire on the police. Taking three hostages at the Hertzberg-Davis Forensic Science Center, they give law enforcement an ultimatum: if Tilly isn't located in the next 24 hours, they will destroy evidence in several major cases. Detective Charlie Hoskins only just survived five years embedded with the ruthless gang known as the Death Machines.

You should not have come to the island. You should not have been speeding. You should not have tried to hide the body. You should not have told your children that you could keep them safe. No one can run forever.

Chrissy, a journalism lecturer struggling to re-enter the workforce after maternity leave, stumbles upon a decades-old mystery that could be her ticket back into the career she loves. A photograph of four young women in ski wear, taken in the Snowy Mountains in 1980, leads her to a chilling double-murder case that was never solved. Michael and Gloria Katzenbach vanished during a white-out, their bodies uncovered months later when the ice melted. The case went cold, but Chrissy is determined to find the truth.

It's 1973 and Detective Sergeant Eleanor Smith is finally assigned her first homicide case. A woman's body has been discovered at Harrowford Hall, a home for unmarried mothers deep in the Victorian countryside. Led by the formidable Mrs Montague, Harrowford has for decades sold itself as a refuge for 'girls in crisis' - like fourteen-year-old Jane McEvoy, who has no idea of how she got pregnant. And Marilyn Pollard, a scared, angry teenager desperate to escape.

For years the firefighters of New York's Engine 99 have rushed fearlessly into hot zones, saving countless lives and stopping devastating blazes in their tracks. They've also stolen millions from banks, jewellery stores and art galleries. With their inside knowledge and specialist equipment they've become the most successful heist crew on the East Coast. Their newest member, Andrea 'Andy' Nearland, is not what she seems either. She's an undercover operative, hunting the men of Engine 99 for a host of crimes - including the murder of an off-duty cop and the disappearance of a mother and child.

Twelve-year-old Will Haddon and his twin friends, Dar and Juno, find a safe full of money and human bones in an old house that's sticking out of a rapidly receding lake amid the worst drought in history. Their mission to identify the body reveals secrets that will rewrite the history of their town and the story of their lives. When Will was five, his dad, a young cop, went missing just days before Old Scarborough was drowned beneath a man-made lake for a hydroelectric scheme.

Akashic Books continues its award-winning series of original noir anthologies with Sidney Noir. This collection comprises of all new stories set in Sidney, Australia, by 14 authors of crime fiction....

Kenna arrives in Sydney to surprise her best friend. But Mikki and her fiancé Jack are about to head away on a trip, so Kenna finds herself tagging along for the ride. Sorrow Bay is beautiful, wild and dangerous. A remote surfing spot with waves to die for, cut off from the rest of the world. Here Kenna meets a mysterious group of people who will do anything to keep their paradise a secret. Sky, Ryan, Clemente and Victor have come to disappear from life. But what did they leave behind?

In the early 1950s Leonard Lawson was the writer/artist of one of Australia's most popular comic books - The Lone Avenger. In May 1954 he rocked Sydney when he sexually assaulted five young women, ranging in age from 15 to 22, in French's Forest, an act that he was sentenced to death for, which was commuted. Upon his release in 1961 he then raped and murdered another girl before taking an entire school hostage, where he killed another young girl. For his crimes, Lawson was sentenced to Never Be Released. This is the story of Leonard 'Lennie' Lawson. It lifts the lid on Lawson's life, and ...

A finely tuned comic depiction of Melbourne's ethnically diverse northern suburbs and the dark underbelly of city life. Down on his luck and hard up for cash, Carl works in the kitchen of a seedy rock 'n' roll joint in ethnically diverse Brunswick. The bouncers and bosses terrify him, he's desperately in love with a much younger Greek waitress, and to make matters worse his mother has come to stay with him. Then a dead body turns up. He and his best mate, Dave, will have to do something about it, and fast....

Meg Morrissey has just lost her job and her partner to an overseas assignment, when she is called back to the family home of Hunters Reach in the picturesque Adelaide Hills. Her ailing grandmother, who raised her when she was orphaned as a child, has always been a formidable figure in her life and this is hardly a welcome summons. When Meg arrives at the ramshackle old homestead, she learns that the place is up for sale. She is expected to care for the property with its extensive garden, while packing up the contents of the house.

Family law judge Kaye Bailey is found murdered in her chambers. Is this the work of a disgruntled complainant? Or an inside job by a jealous colleague? Or is there something even more insidious at the heart of this brutal act? Detective Jillian Basset is just back from maternity leave, trying to juggle new motherhood as she tackles the biggest case of her career. As her work and home lives get messier and messier, though, something's going to give.

Since leaving the Boston Police Department, Bill Robinson has run The Inn by the Sea in Gloucester, Massachusetts. There he offers a safe and supportive home for his long-term guests. That tranquil life, however, is about to be shattered. Two murderers are heading to Bill's door. One needs his help to evade the cops. The other plans to kill again to silence the truth. Standing in their way are the residents of the Inn. And not everyone will get out alive.

Sex. Drugs. Danger. Death. This is the adrenaline-pumping story of the world's most audacious drug runners and the police hunt to track them down. These drug-running playboys travel the globe: they ski in Europe, surf in Bali, hook up with celebrity models and live in five-star hotels. They are 24/7 party boys with brass balls, steely nerves and reckless ambitions. They pay for their high-risk, hedonistic lifestyle by trafficking cocaine, ecstasy and marijuana on international flights and through the world's biggest airports. But to ride the wave you have to roll the dice.

We all know Sydney is full of corruption and crime, but none of us expected to read about a Sydney businessman being shot in the back of his head, in his driveway, in front of his nine-year-old son, in Cremorne. Nor that the order would come from a Point Piper millionaire. Kate McClymont is Australia's best-known investigative journalist. Kate and McGurk received intel that he was going to be 'hit'. Before the two could meet, McGurk was murdered.

British mother Rosie Ayliffe thought her 21-year-old daughter, Mia, would be safe travelling around Australia on a gap year. But Mia wanted to extend her visa and in order to do that needed to find 88 days of work on a farm - a requirement that would lead to catastrophic events. Four short days after Mia moved to a hostel in Queensland to take a job on a sugarcane farm, she was brutally murdered.

For all her life, Till, now twenty-three, has lived in the shadow of the abduction of a childhood friend, and her tormented half-wondering about whether she might have been able to stop it. Finally, at the age of twenty-three, Till flees her past and the hovering presence of her fearful parents. In Wirowie, a town that's on its knees, she stops and slowly begins creating a new home, rebuilding an abandoned railway station. But there is danger here too.

Things have settled down in Cooinda and Eleanor Jones is getting used to her new normal - spending time with her friends, going to school, and working on a project at the local old age home. But just as things start to feel calm, a series of events once again rock Eleanor's world: Troy's ex-girlfriend is back in town and, during a visit to the old age home, Eleanor's buddy Nance admits to witnessing a murder, swearing Eleanor to secrecy.