Australian Fiction Mysteries

It's funny how quick it happens and without you really noticing. Anton said once that it's like walking out into the sea, and you think everything's fine and the water's warm, but when you turn back you're suddenly miles from shore. I've never been much of a swimmer, but I get what he means. Like being caught in a current or something. A rip.

On his 11th birthday, Jacob's father gives him a diary. To write about things that happen. About what he and his father do on their farm. About the sheep, the crop, the fox and the dam. But Jacob knows some things should not be written down. Some things should not be remembered. The only things he knows for sure are what his father has taught him. Sheltered, protected, isolated. But who is his father protecting him from? And how far will his father go to keep the world at bay?

Broken by his last case, homicide detective Joe Cashin has fled the city and returned to his hometown in South Eastern Australia, while his wounds heal and the nightmares fade. His recovery is interrupted when a local man is brutally attacked and left for dead. In the small town, suspicion quickly falls on three young men from the local Aboriginal community - but Cashin's not so sure.

Eleven-year-old Bella has a terrible guilty secret: something she did three years ago, when her English relatives were visiting. Now, in the last week in December, they were returning to Australia and Bella fears the worst: that they are coming to confront her; that they suspected her all along.

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....

England, 1961. Samuel's mother has been away for 113 days. Now it's just Samuel and Ruth, the housekeeper, alone in the once-great house. His mother is abroad, purportedly tending to her late husband's faltering business. Samuel yearns for her return but knows she must have had her reasons for leaving in the middle of the night, without saying good-bye. Although Samuel receives occasional postcards from his mother, her absence weighs heavily on his mind.

It’s hot. It’s windy. It’s dusty. It’s the Australian outback. Wendy Lee arrives from California. She’s lucky to meet Chloe Taylor, who invites Wendy to their sheep station. It sounds like fun, except that someone is stealing the sheep. And the thief just might be something as crazy as a UFO.

Sometimes, only a kid can save the day.... Star athlete Josh and computer prodigy Madison begin the adventure of a lifetime when they discover the Small World Global Protection Agency. The GPA is a secret organization dedicated to helping other kids and saving the day when adults can’t. In New Kids on the Rock, their first mission takes them to Australia, where they go from the Outback to the top of the Sydney Opera House!

Lina and Cain are doing their best to stay afloat. Money has been tight since Cain returned from active duty, and starting a family is proving harder than they thought. Putting Lina's inherited lake house up for rent at weekends seems like the solution to at least one of their problems. The secluded house is more of a burden than a retreat, anyway, and fixing up the old place makes Cain feel useful for once.

Eddie Woo Super Sleuth is ready for action and mystery. With a mind for maths and a nose for adventure, he is about to skateboard into...danger. When Eddie receives a cryptic message from Mr Appleby, a Woo family friend and resident of Sunny Side Aged Care, he is soon on a mission to thwart the evil plans of smugglers. It's up to Eddie to crack the clues and improve his skateboarding so that he can enter the annual school Triple Threat Quest with his best friends Rusty and DT.

Kate Webb still grieves over the loss of her young son. Ten years on, she spends her weekends hungover, attending open houses on Sydney's wealthy north shore and imagining the lives of the people who live there. Then Kate visits the Harding house - the perfect house with, it seems, the perfect family. A photograph captures a kind-looking man, a beautiful woman she knew at university, and a boy - a boy that for one heartbreaking moment she believes is her own son.

When thirteen-year-old Celeste travels to China to visit her grandmother, she uncovers an incredible family secret. And with this secret comes danger and adventure. If Celeste is to save her family and friends, she must learn to harness her rare and powerful gift.

Eddie Woo Super Sleuth: a mind for maths and a nose for adventure. A treasure hunt, a piano key, ciphers, a puzzle from the past... Eddie Woo and his best friends Rusty and DT must find clues, crack a musical mystery, scale a lighthouse, discover a secret cave and find long-forgotten gold. But they are not the only ones searching for it...

New York, 1954. A Fifth Avenue address, parties at the Plaza, two healthy sons and the ideal husband: what looks like a perfect life for Katharina Edgeworth is anything but. Now the wife of a beloved pediatric surgeon and heir to a shipping fortune, Katharina is trapped in a gilded cage, desperate to escape the constraints of domesticity. So when she is approached by the FBI and asked to join their ranks as an informant, Katharina seizes the opportunity. A man from her past has become a high-level Soviet spy, but no one has been able to infiltrate his circle.

New York City, 2015: Elise Duval, 80 years old, receives a phone call from a woman recently arrived from Cuba bearing messages from a time and country that she's long forgotten. A French Catholic who arrived in New York after World War II, Elise is forever changed when the woman arrives with letters written to Elise from her mother in German during the war. Berlin, 1939: Bookstore owner and recent widow Amanda Sternberg is fleeing Nazi Germany with her two young daughters, heading towards unoccupied France. Their freedom is short-lived.