Australian Fiction Mysteries

“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,...

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?

Reid left the small town of Manson a decade ago, promising his former Chief of Police boss he'd never return. He made a new life in the city, became a PI and turned his back on his old life for good. Now an insurance firm has offered him good money to look into a suspicious car crash, and he finds himself back in the place he grew up—home to his complicated family history, a scarring relationship breakdown and a very public career-ending incident. As Reid's investigation unfolds, nothing is as it seems.

Maine, 1789: When a man is found entombed in the frozen Kennebec River, Martha Ballard is summoned to examine the body and determine cause of death. As the local midwife and healer, Martha is good at keeping secrets. Her diary is a record of every birth, death and debacle that unfolds in the town of Hallowell. In that diary she has also documented the details of an alleged rape committed by one of the town’s most esteemed gentlemen – the same man who has now been found dead in the ice.

Three years into his tumultuous career as a black-ops wrecking ball, a young Jason King’s superiors mandate a week’s rest between assignments. But three days in, his vacation is nixed, and a mysterious CIA spook puts him on a plane to Chile for a training camp atop the highest volcano on earth. Ojos del Salado sits twenty thousand feet above sea level–within hours of arrival, the workload threatens to destroy him: physically, emotionally, spiritually. But there’s a reason they want him crippled by altitude sickness.

Who knew boarding school could be this perilous!

Katie has only one dream to be the best wilderness scout ever. And to win all ten badges available during their five-day camping trip to Kangaroo Island, and most important to beat all the other girls to the Camp Cup, the once-a-year prize for the best wilderness troop. With her four troop members in tow, she sets up camp in a remote location where a strange giant rock dominates the beach … Was that rock there last year? In the night, something is slaughtering the roos in the night… If the adults find out Katie and her troop will be sent home. The competition for the Camp Cup is heating...

Chicago, 2003. For twenty-year-old Will Slater, each day is a matter of survival on the crime-ridden streets of Englewood. Possessed by a rigid moral code, he allies with the city’s ruthless gangs only when absolutely necessary, and doesn’t hesitate to turn on crews he finds reprehensible. Orphaned at fourteen by a harrowing chain of events, he’s walked this tightrope for years without a safety net. Then it all changes. When a gang approaches Will with a job, memories are triggered that he’d rather forget. But once he accepts, he’s plunged into a web of deceit.

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 ...

ORIGIANL STORY, WRITTEN BY A HUMAN Something evil is going on out there... Detective Ange Watson always knew policing was a hard job. A dangerous job. But she never expected to take a bullet in the line of duty… And now it seems her superiors are willing to throw Ange under the bus to cover up their own mistakes. While she isn’t easily intimidated, everyone has their limits. But when a scared young Vietnamese woman seeks refuge in a country church, it sets in motion a chain of events that will push Ange’s ingenuity and determination to its limits. No human being deserves to be sold to...

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.

Patterson's greatest crime-solving team since the Women's Murder Club is the Bird Sisters. Rhonda and Barbara "Baby" Bird are half-sisters-and full partners in their Los Angeles detective agency. They agree on nothing.

When the Australian Mystery Writers' Society invited me to their crime-writing festival aboard the Ghan, the famous train between Darwin and Adelaide, I was hoping for some inspiration for my second book. Fiction, this time: I needed a break from real people killing each other. Obviously, that didn't pan out. The program is a who's who of crime-writing royalty. But when one of us is murdered, six authors quickly turn into five detectives. Together, we should know how to solve a crime. Or commit one.

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.

When Jenny Williams took a job as the new constable in an outback opal mining town, she thought she’d be hunting down clues to find her missing aunt and cousin. But when a young woman’s body is found at the bottom of a mine shaft, a possible murder forces her personal agenda to take a back seat. Jenny goes head to head with her new commanding officer. He doesn’t want to ruffle feathers in town and rules the case Death By Misadventure. But Jenny is sure the dead woman met with foul play.

Sydney, the present: journalist Nick Eatwell has just lost his job, but his day is brightened when a fellow reporter, South African Susan Vidler, comes into his life looking for help with a story. Susan is chasing information about Nick's great-great uncle, Cyril Blake, who fought in the Anglo-Boer War and later joined the struggle for independence across the border in the German colony of South West Africa, now Namibia. A long-lost manuscript proves Nick's forebear was a somewhat reluctant hero.

Police corruption, an investigation that ends in tragedy and the mystery of a little girl's silence - three unconnected events that will prove to be linked by one small town. While Detective Cormac Reilly faces enemies at work and trouble in his personal life, Garda Peter Fisher is relocated out of Galway with the threat of prosecution hanging over his head. But even that is not as terrible as having to work for his overbearing father, the local copper for the pretty seaside town of Roundstone.

A first-rate thriller about an American millionaire who owns the House of Cain, a haven for murderers wanted by the law. Austilene Thorpe is accused of murder but then disappears from gaol. Her fiance, Martin Sherwood, goes blind from shock. His famous adventuring brother Monty learns that Austilene is in a refuge for murderers in the far north-east corner of South Australia, and together the Sherwoods set out to find her and bring her back to Melbourne....

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.

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.