Australian Fiction Mysteries

1967: Hazel's new job at the docks quickly turns perilous when she stumbles into the criminal underworld that lurks beneath the surface. A million in gold coins has vanished from a cargo ship and a dead body washed up. Suddenly, she's in over her head. Disillusioned with her life, Betty is led astray by a charismatic new friend and finds herself exposed in more ways than one - until a crisis drags her back to reality. Living in a high-class brothel, Irene gets wind of a threat that could destroy her livelihood.

Neal Stephenson's sweeping, prescient new novel transports listeners to a near-future world where the greenhouse effect has inexorably resulted in a whirling-dervish troposphere of superstorms, rising sea levels, global flooding, merciless heat waves, and virulent, deadly pandemics.

Prepare yourself for an exhilarating journey through humanity’s most profound questions in this gripping novel. Meet Albert, a boy genetically engineered for unparalleled intelligence, torn from the arms of his parents, and thrust into a world that cannot understand him. As Albert breaks free from his captors in a daring escape, he embarks on a path that challenges conventional notions of right and wrong. Detective Miriam Hunter is hot on his trail, determined to bring him to justice. But could there be more to Albert than meets the eye? Is he merely a victim, desperate to comprehend his ...

For more than 150 years, a grand house known as Alden Castle has stood proudly in the rolling hills of California's wine country, home to a family weighed down by secrets and debt. When the castle is sold, billionaire developers move in, only to discover one skeleton after another—including a fresh corpse—rotting in the old family cemetery. As three generations of the well-respected Alden-Stowe family come under scrutiny, police unearth a twisted web of rivalries, alliances, deceit, and treachery. Who lied? Who will survive? Who, amid all the horror and betrayal, is the lucky one?

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.

Detective Rebecca Giles has just finished interviewing aging petty crim Sticky Pete over a spate of break-and-enters when a disturbing new report comes in. Twelve-year-old Kayleen Ellis has vanished from her home in Muswellbrook in the Upper Hunter Valley. Hours later, Giles is a local hero, having apparently solved Kayleen's case and the spate of jewellery thefts. Yet the hangover from her celebrations has barely kicked in when the body of young jillaroo Ava Emmerson is discovered in gruesome circumstances on a nearby farm.

America is reeling from the national blackout that swept the nation, continuing to dig out of the power outage. And the new president is unlike any Mitch has worked with in the past; he is extremely dictatorial and sees cracks in America's democratic institutions that he believes can be exploited to put his family in power permanently. As Mitch backs away from the new president, he in turn questions Rapp's loyalty. Mitch decides to take a much needed break and moves to his house in Cape Town, where he gets pulled into a job with Nicholas Ward, the world's first trillionaire.

International Politics with a dirty politician The action begins with a terrorist attack and is quickly followed by an assassination attempt, a pretty girl, a supermarket bombing, a train hijacking and Jack finding himself being circled by a hungry shark. Jack Hamma, ex SAS Commando has to cope with it all and in the end, much like in the beginning Jack finds himself in the drink and swimming for his life. 'A cracking little book, this is definitely one for the fans of Jack Hamma’ ‘Looking forward to Jacks next adventure.' ‘Thorogood just gets better with these larger than life action...

'Did you have to kill them all?' It's the question Gabe Ahern has been running from since he bust open a major criminal operation - and left a dozen men dead. He knows that one day the 'bad guys' will come for revenge. A skilled dog-trapper, Gabe has one rule: leave no sign, leave no trace. And for the last year he's been successfully hiding out on a friend's remote cattle property in the Pilbara.

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.

Ivy is in trouble. A recent break-up has left her humiliated and raw, so when her best friend, Regan, offers her a month-long escape in the form of a trip to Australia, it feels like a lifeline, one that Ivy grabs with both hands. Regan is everything Ivy’s not. But Ivy is drawn to a calmer type of holiday, so when she spots an ad for crewmembers on a small yacht being sailed by a doting father and his daughter, the girls decide to take the job. Together with a handsome third crewmember, they set off north into tropical heat, but it's not long before doubts start to creep in.

Kieran Elliott's life changed forever on the day a reckless mistake led to devastating consequences. The guilt that still haunts him resurfaces during a visit with his young family to the small coastal community he once called home. Kieran's parents are struggling in a town where fortunes are forged by the sea. Between them all is his absent brother, Finn. When a body is discovered on the beach, long-held secrets threaten to emerge. A sunken wreck, a missing girl, and questions that have never washed away....

“I very much enjoyed ‘Tears of God’ - if I ever have to go on a covert mission, I’ll definitely be taking Steve Freeman with me!” Ruth Downie, author of New York Times best seller Medicus "Tears of God is an outstanding book with suspense that kept me on the edge of my seat. The characters were brilliant and strong. The ending had an unexpected twist, and it was a real shocker." - Readers’ Favorite A prophecy…a promise…a project A chance encounter leads FBI agent Mallory Blackwell to investigate the circumstances surrounding the mysterious death of her father, Cutter Wilson,...

A woman has been found crushed and mutilated inside mining equipment. Jenny is sure the woman’s death was no accident. She investigates and uncovers a link to an extremist Sovereigntist cult who don’t take kindly to strangers. As if fanatics weren’t scary enough—the commune is full of armed men and what appears to be women held captive. Her gut instincts are telling her this cult is trouble, but she needs proof. Jenny’s boss tells her to do what she’s never been good at—be patient, don’t stir up trouble and keep her mouth shut.

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 ...

When 18-year-old Kitty Carlisle's father dies in 1838, her suddenly impoverished mother hopes her beautiful daughter might at least find a good husband. But then, Kitty is compromised by an unscrupulous adventurer, and she is banished in disgrace to the colonies. In the infamous whaling port of Kororareka—known as the Hell-Hole of the Pacific—Kitty falls in love with Rian Farrell, a mysterious sea captain with secrets of his own. Shocking events force her to flee the Bay of Islands for Sydney, but her independent heart leads her into a web.

All Hanna Fischer ever wanted to do was to study physics under the great Albert Einstein. But when, as a teenager in 1919, her life is suddenly turned upside-down, she is catapulted into a new and extraordinary life - as a secretary, a scientist, a sister and a spy. From racist gangs in Berlin to gangsters in New York City, Nazis in the 1930s and Hitler's inner circle during the Second World War, Hanna will encounter some of history's greatest minds and most terrible moments, all while desperately trying to stay alive.

Constable Jenny Williams took a job in a remote opal mining town for answers. When the case surrounding her missing cousin goes cold, she embraces an invitation to party with the locals. But the night is cut short when the live music event turns into a crowded crime scene. A high-pitched scream and the smell of burning flesh has left a woman burned to death. No one saw the perpetrator, not even Jenny. Now it’s her job to catch the psychopath before they kill again. With no ID, no witnesses and no one coming forward who knows the woman, her case has no leads—not even a motive.

In Unamurra, a drought-scarred, one-pub town deep in the outback, two men are savagely murdered a month apart - their bodies elaborately arranged like angels. With no witnesses, no obvious motives and no apparent connections between the killings, how can lone police officer Detective Dana Russo - flown in from hundreds of kilometres away - possibly solve such a baffling, brutal case? Met with silence and suspicion from locals who live by their own set of rules, Dana must take over a stalled investigation with only a week to make progress.

The small town of Nannine lies in the harsh red interior of New South Wales. Once a thriving outback centre, years of punishing drought have whittled it down to no more than a couple of pubs and a police station. And its one sinister claim to fame: the still-unsolved disappearance of Evelyn McCreery 19 years ago from the bedroom she shared with her twin sister. Mina McCreery's life has been defined by the intense and ongoing public interest in her sister's case. Now an anxious and reclusive adult, Mina lives alone on her family's sunbaked destocked sheep farm.