Australian Fiction Mysteries

Eleanor Jones has just started at her ninth high school in less than five years. Since she and her mum are always moving on, Eleanor likes to stay on the outer, to stay invisible. So maybe it's just bad luck that the very first person she talks to at Cooinda Secondary College, Angus Marshall, is stabbed and left for dead the same day. The last message on Angus's phone is from Eleanor Jones.

The first drops start to fall when Quinn spies the body. With no reception and nothing but an empty road for miles, does she stop to help or keep driving to safety? Back at the iconic country pub where Quinn works, Andrea is sandbagging the place in preparation for heavy rains. Alone with her sleeping son in the back room, she reluctantly lets a biker in to wait out the storm. Out on the wet roads, tensions arise among four backpackers on their way to Darwin. They haven’t prepared for this kind of weather and the flooding isn’t the only threat on the horizon.

Of all the nightmare options that passed through Antonia Heaveringham's head when her husband Hugo uttered the words, 'I've got something to tell you,' a coming out speech never figured. Suddenly alone in their adopted home of Sydney, with no friends save for her six-year-old son Tom and a pair of jeweled Jimmy Choo mules, Antonia soon finds that an attractive single woman is not nearly so welcome on the champagne social scene as the wife of a glamorous English aristocrat.

Egypt is under attack. The ancient city of Luxor is under attack. Pharaoh Tamose lies mortally wounded. All seems lost. Taita prepares for the enemy's final, fatal push. The ex-slave, now general of Tamose's armies, is never more ingenious than when all hope is dashed. And this is Egypt's most desperate hour. With the timely arrival of an old ally, Taita's army repels the enemy invaders; for now, at least. But upon his return to Luxor, Taita is seized and branded a traitor. Tamose is dead and a poisonous new era has begun. The new Pharaoh has risen.

You are invited to: The Search Party. Join six old friends for one wild weekend at Cornwall’s newest glamping spot. The guests: The anxious hosts with everything at stake. The boho hippies concealing a private darkness. The TV celebrity with his hot new wife and an even hotter temper. The exhausted new parents with a secret to hide. The one that won’t make it home alive . . . The tents are up. The bonfire is lit. Get ready for one hell of a party.

For as long as he can remember, it has been Galileo's dream to become a police horse. But when his dream comes true, he soon realises he's not there to solve crimes–he's just a vehicle to carry around the 'real' human detectives. When Galileo witnesses a crime, he decides to take matters into his own hands. He has a lot to learn, but each crime he solves is sure to take him one step closer to becoming a real detective ...

Amy has only ever known life in the Clearing. She knows what's expected of her. That is, until a new young girl joins the group. Freya has gone to great lengths to feel like a 'normal person'. In fact, if you saw her go about her day with her young son, you'd think she was an everyday mum. That is, until a young girl goes missing and someone from her past, someone she hasn't seen for a very long time, arrives in town.

After a disastrous fire in the village leaves a family without a home, Alice-Miranda and her friends pitch in to help. They decide to hold a music festival to raise funds. The only trouble is, not everyone's as keen on the idea. Things are also heating up in Winchesterfield-Downsfordvale Academy for Proper Young Ladies with Miss Reedy at the helm. The arrival of a new teacher, a deputy turned diva and an entire faculty of disgruntled staff sees tempers flare. Has the power gone to Miss Reedy's head or is there a sinister hand at play?

After a card game turns violent, Franko escapes into the Australian wilderness, where he experiences the diverse hardship of the Australian bush but is rescued from certain disaster by an Aborigine. Sergeant Patterson is a tough lawman who defends the one he considers most worthy—guilty or innocent. He is determined to bring Franko to trial.

When Sydney socialite Tottie Evans is found dead at a house in Palm Beach, Detective Holly Sutton is called in to investigate. She immediately suspects the boyfriend, a millionaire property developer and ex-mercenary soldier, who refuses to cooperate with police.

Hector Cross, ex-SAS officer, private security expert, widower. His wife was taken much too soon, by a cruel man with evil intentions. Johnny Congo, psychopath, extortionist, terrorist, the man who murdered Hector's wife. Cross wants him dead. So does the US government. Congo is locked up on Death Row in the most secure prison in the free world, counting down the days until his execution. He's got two weeks. He wants out. He's escaped before and knows he can again. Cross, still licking his wounds from his last bruising encounter with Congo, is back and ready for work.

After being double-crossed by a devious colleague, career woman Ellie Conlan quits her job on principle. With no idea what to do next, she retreats to Storm Harbour, an idyllic Victorian beach town. Ellie's grandfather runs The Storm Harbour Chronicle, the trusted local newspaper. As Ellie is drawn into a story about a development which could split the coastal community - and involves her with the influential O'Neill family - an event she has long suppressed threatens to overwhelm her.

Television producer Laurie Moran and her fiancée, Alex Buckley, the former host of her investigative television show, are just days away from their mid-August wedding, when things take a dark turn. Alex’s seven-year-old nephew, Johnny, vanishes from the beach. A search party begins and witnesses recall Johnny playing in the water and collecting shells behind the beach shack, but no one remembers seeing him after the morning. As the sun sets, Johnny’s skim board washes up to shore, and everyone realizes that he could be anywhere, even under water.

'In 1954, at just fourteen years of age, Mabel Waller became the youngest Australian in history to be convicted of murder.' In 2025, on a quiet Melbourne lane, an elderly man is found dead by his neighbour, 81-year-old Elsie Fitzpatrick. No one suspects any foul play. Until they discover Elsie's past. In the 1950s, her name was not Elsie. It was Mabel. 'She is known around the world as Mad Mabel. But is she mad? More importantly, is she guilty?' When the police open a new investigation and the media descend upon her, the elderly Mabel decides it's time to set the record straight.

Dr. Kay Scarpetta is working a suspicious death scene in Cambridge, Massachusetts when an emergency alert sounds on her phone. A video link lands in her text messages and seems to be from her computer genius niece Lucy. But how can it be? It's clearly a surveillance film of Lucy taken almost 20 years ago. As Scarpetta watches she begins to learn frightening secrets about her beloved niece that raise dangerous legal implications, leaving Scarpetta confused, worried, and unable to turn to Lucy, her FBI husband Benton Wesley, or her investigative partner Pete Marino.

Back at Alexandria, with their friend Curtis Pepper visiting, Kensy and Max are enjoying the school break. Especially when Granny Cordelia surprises them with a trip to New York! It's meant to be a family vacation, but the twins soon realise there's more to this holiday than meets the eye. The chase to capture Dash Chalmers is on, and when there's another dangerous criminal on the loose, the twins find themselves embroiled in a most unusual case. They'll need all their spy sensibilities, along with Curtis and his trusty spy backpack, to bring down the culprit.

After many tumultuous years spent grappling with the past, Jenny Hooper might have expected her latter years to be the best of her life, and they are - until tragedy strikes. Left floundering in a house full of memories, not all of them good, Jenny knows a reckoning is in order. But it won't be easy. History is beginning to repeat itself for Jenny's adopted daughter, Trudy, who finds herself trapped in an abusive relationship. Jenny and her older daughter, Georgie, can only stand by and watch as Trudy's life implodes.

Shelby Tebow is the first to go missing. Not long after, Meredith Dickey and her six-year-old daughter, Delilah, vanish just blocks away from where Shelby was last seen, striking fear into their once-peaceful community. Are these incidents connected? After an elusive search that yields more questions than answers, the case eventually goes cold.

Last summer, Alice Ogilvie's basketball-star boyfriend, Steve, dumped her. Then she disappeared for five days. Where she went and what happened to her is the biggest mystery in Castle Cove. Or at least it was. Because now, another one of Steve's girlfriends has vanished: Brooke Donovan, Alice's ex-best friend. And it doesn't look like Brooke will be coming back ...

Young real estate agent Madison May is shocked when a client at an open house says these words to her. The man, a stranger, seems to know far too much about her and professes his love - shortly before he murders her. Felicity Staples hates reporting on murders. As a journalist for a mid-size New York City paper, she knows she must take on the assignment to research Madison May's shocking murder, but the crime seems random and the suspect is in the wind. That is, until Felicity spots the killer on the subway, right before he vanishes.