Australian Fiction Mysteries

Ming Qong is convinced that girls have changed the world throughout history. So when Ming is thrust back in time to Belgium during WWI, only to be rescued from a burning cellar by Marie -- an experienced spy at only twelve years of age -- she finally has her proof. Marie is involved with a female secret resistance group who risk their lives to outwit the German troops. But Ming now faces a tough choice: will she send coded messages and risk her own life in this war on which the future depends?

Liora has shone from within ever since a star collided with her house when she was a child. Since that day, she has spent her life indoors, only venturing out on the brightest days when her magic can’t be detected. For discovery could mean falling prey to the king’s warlock, Darius, who uses mages’ magic to grow his own power. But when her worst nightmare comes to pass, and Darius discovers her, she’s not the one taken. Instead, he demands that her younger sister return to the capital with him to work under his watchful eye.

December 1974. Abby Campbell and her brother Charlie are driving to their father's farm on a dark country road when they swerve into the path of another car, forcing it into a tree. The pregnant driver is killed instantly. In the heat of the moment, Abby and Charlie make a fateful decision. They flee, hoping heavy rain will erase the fact they were there. They both have too much to lose.

Montague has devoted his life to managing the wealth of London's elite, but at a huge cost: a family of his own. Then the enticing Miss Violet Matcham seeks his help, and in the puzzle she presents him, he finds an intriguing new challenge professionally...and personally. Violet, devoted lady-companion to the aging Lady Halstead, turns to Montague to reassure her ladyship that her affairs are in order.

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.

As the resourceful, relentless Li tracks her lost daughter across a disintegrating country, the journey will test the limits of her trust, her hope and her love. Unsheltered will leave you wrung out and gasping.

Four years ago Eliza Dacey was brutally murdered. Within hours, her killer was caught. Wasn't he? So reads the opening titles of Jack Quick's new true-crime documentary. A skilled producer, Jack knows that the bigger the conspiracy, the higher the ratings. Curtis Wade, convicted of Eliza's murder on circumstantial evidence and victim of a biased police force, is the perfect subject. Millions of viewers agree. Just before the finale, Jack uncovers a minor detail that may prove Curtis guilty after all.

It’s sweltering in Charlotte, North Carolina and Temperance Brennan, still recovering from neurosurgery following an aneurysm, is battling nightmares, migraines, and what she thinks might be hallucinations when she receives a series of mysterious text messages, each containing a new picture of a corpse that is missing its face and hands. Immediately, she’s anxious to know who the dead man is, and why the images were sent to her.

It's winter in Melbourne, and Detective Emmett Corban is starting to regret his promotion to head of the Missing Persons Unit, as the routine reports pile up on his desk. So when Natale Gibson goes missing, he's convinced this is the big case he's been waiting for - the woman's husband and parents insist the devoted mother would never abandon her children, and her personal accounts remain untouched. But things aren't all they seem. The close-knit Italian family is keeping secrets - none bigger than the one Natale has been hiding.

Harper Brown is an expert at picking locks, breaking her way out of car boots, and talking her way out of trouble, and she could run a masterclass on escaping relationships—her record for losing a guy is three minutes flat. She’s addicted to true crime podcasts and is the genius behind a micro-column called "How to Not Get Murdered". After having her heart broken helping her ex follow his dreams, Harper has moved to Paris to fulfill hers. But then one night she meets the artist Noah X, and everything she thinks she knows is turned upside down.

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.

Poppy's world has tipped sideways: the husband who never wanted children has betrayed her with her broody best friend. At least Annalise is on her side. Poppy's new friend is determined to celebrate their freedom from kids, so together they create a Facebook group to meet up with like-minded women and perhaps vent a little about smug mums and their privileges at work.

Gwendolyn and Estella have always been as close as sisters can be. Growing up in a wealthy, powerful and sometimes treacherous family, they've relied on each other for support and confidence. Now, though, Gwendolyn is lying in a coma, the sole survivor of Estella's poisoning of their whole family. What in their dark and complicated past has brought them to this point? As Gwendolyn struggles to regain consciousness, she desperately retraces her memories, trying to uncover the moment that led to this brutal act.

Été 1992, dans une lointaine banlieue de Sydney, en lisière du bush. Un été caniculaire durant lequel une puanteur infecte se dégage du lit de la rivière. Un été que Tikka, onze ans et deux mois, n'a jamais oublié : celui où les sœurs Van Apfel ont disparu. Les trois filles du pasteur - Hannah, l'aînée, Cordelia, la fantasque, somnambule à ses heures, et la petite Ruth avec son bec-de-lièvre - profitent de l'entracte du spectacle de l'école pour se faire la belle et s'évanouir dans la nature. Le corps de la plus jeune sera retrouvé coincé entre deux rochers.

Robin Goodfellow. Puck. Prankster, joker, raven, fool...King Oberon’s right-hand jester from A Midsummer Night’s Dream. The legends are many, but the truth will now be known as never before, as Puck finally tells his own story and faces a threat to the lands of Faery and the human world unlike any before.

When investigative journalist Chrissie O’Brian lands a senior job at The Argus, she is desperate to escape the nightmares of her past. Her life has become a daily battle to numb the pain. But her job is something she can do better than anyone else - and the only thing that keeps the memories at bay.

Melanie Hale is a devoted mother to her two children, a diligent caregiver to her ailing mother-in-law and a trusted neighbor in their wealthy Louisiana community. Above all, she’s a loving partner to her wonderful husband, Collin. Then there are the parts of herself that Mel keeps hidden. She’s exhausted, worried and unfulfilled. So much so that one night, after a writers’ group meeting, Mel begins an affair with a successful local author named Luke.

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.

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.

He knows he's innocent. She knows he's a killer. Whom do you believe? In a small town in the shadow of Mount Wellington, a woman named Ana is watching the clock, marking the days until she ends her life. The strange, reclusive daughter of the local pariah, that's how people will remember her, when they remember her at all. No one will mourn her, she reasons, not really. Not even her faithful dog, River. The only thing she's waiting for is the opportunity. But then, on the very day she planned to end it all, the police find the body of local woman Rebecca Marsden....