Australian Fiction Mysteries

In the summer of 1914, vigneron Jerome Méa heads off to war, certain he'll be home by Christmas. His new bride Sophie, a fifth-generation champenoise, is determined to ensure the forthcoming vintages will be testament to their love and the power of the people of Épernay, especially its strong women. But as the years drag on, authorities advise that Jerome is missing, considered dead. When poison gas is first used in Belgium by the Germans, British chemist Charles Nash jumps to enlist.

When 25-year-old Bella Michaels is brutally murdered in the small town of Strathdee, the community is stunned, and a media storm descends. Unwillingly thrust into the eye of that storm is Bella's beloved older sister, Chris, a barmaid at the local pub, whose apparent easygoing nature conceals hard-won wisdom and the kind of street smarts only experience can bring. As Chris is plunged into despair and searches for answers, reasons, explanation - anything - that could make even the smallest sense of Bella's death, her ex-husband, friends and neighbours do their best to support her.

Evie and her uncle Jim have just moved to the small, insular town in New Zealand - a far cry from their hometown of Melbourne. But Evie isn't her real name. And Jim isn't really her uncle. Jim tells Evie she did something terrible back home, that he's hiding her to protect her. But Evie can't remember anything about that night - she doesn't know if he's telling the truth. As fragments of her memory starts to return, she starts to wonder if Jim is really her saviour...or her captor.

Ex-US black ops warrior Will Slater wasn’t looking for peace. He anticipated carnage when he decided to venture into war-torn Yemen–but he didn’t expect to have to call on his skill set so soon. A young Yemeni boy is dead–maimed by northern highland tribesmen in the Hadhramaut Valley. The act was intended to send a message to the remote mountain town of Qasam, ordering them not to interfere with the business of the tribes. Slater sets off into the mountains in pursuit of vengeance. It was supposed to be a simple act of vigilante justice, but the boy was just the tip of the iceberg.

When Milla is invited to a reunion in the cosy resort that saw the peak of her snowboarding career, she drops everything to go. While she would rather forget the events of that winter, the invitation comes from Curtis, the one person she can't seem to let go. The five friends haven't seen each other for 10 years, since the disappearance of the beautiful and enigmatic Saskia. But when an icebreaker game turns menacing, they realise they don't know who has really gathered them there and how far they will go to find the truth.

In this thrilling sequel, Melissa, a lawyer turned successful podcaster, has recently married a man whose first wife died tragically, leaving him and their young daughter, Riley, behind. While Melissa and her brother, Mike, help their mother relocate to the idyllic Hamptons, Melissa’s new stepdaughter goes missing. Drawing on the experience of their own abduction, Melissa and Mike race to find Riley to save her from the trauma they still struggle with—or worse.

A whirlwind romance. When Theodora Scott met Connor - wealthy, charming, and a member of the powerful Dalton family - she fell in love in an instant. Six months later, he's brought her to Idlewood, his family's isolated winter retreat, to win over his skeptical relatives. Stay away from Connor Dalton. Theo has tried to ignore the threatening messages on her phone, but she can't ignore the footprints in the snow outside her window or the cabin's strange familiar feeling. Then, Theo finds something impossible: a photo of herself as a child. A photo taken at Idlewood.

Penny Carter's quiet life in Southbend, running a nursery with her ex father-in-law, is turned upside down when Lisa, the young daughter of her late husband, is unexpectedly deposited on her doorstep. The unwelcome houseguest stirs up more than just memories of Penny's husband's betrayal, when a cyclone leads to the discovery of a skeleton buried next to the town cemetery.

Andrea Oliver's mother, Laura, is the perfect small-town mum. Laura lives a quiet but happy life in sleepy beachside Belle Isle. She's a pillar of the community: a speech therapist, business owner, and everybody's friend. And she's never kept a secret from anyone. Or so Andrea thinks. When Andrea is caught in a random violent attack at a shopping mall, Laura intervenes and acts in a way that is unrecognizable to her daughter. It"s like Laura is a completely different person—and that's because she was. Thirty years ago. Before Andrea. Before Belle Isle.

Kensy and Max's next spy mission sees them head to the City of Lights.

It's 1919, Richmond football club is on top of the ladder, cream buns are threepence each and four boys are gunning for the best job in town. Charlie is lucky enough to win the prime job - running messages for Squizzy Taylor, the most dangerous gangster in Melbourne. But things start to get a little too hot for Charlie, so he decides to take the money and run....

On a sweltering Friday afternoon in Durton, best friends Ronnie and Esther leave school together. Esther never makes it home. Ronnie's going to find her; she has a plan. Lewis will help. Their friend can't be gone; Ronnie won't believe it. Detective Sergeant Sarah Michaels can believe it; she has seen what people are capable of. She knows more than anyone how, in a moment of weakness, a person can be driven to do something they never thought possible. Lewis can believe it, too. But he can't reveal what he saw that afternoon at the creek without exposing his own secret.

Someone is imprisoned in a horrible cage, but why is Jack trying to get caught by Ranger Johnny Wolf? What is Foxie up to? And just who is sharing Jack's basket these days? Everything is fine in Doggeroo until Sarge falls ill. Auntie Tidge is at hand to look after Jack, but Foxie is being disagreeable (again). When will Sarge be back? In no time, Jack has both a case and a moral dilemma - or even two. Is it right to leave his most dangerous enemy trussed up in a cage? And, who will mind the boy while he's off detecting?

Meet Evie, a young woman held captive by a man named Jim in the isolated New Zealand beach town of Maketu. Jim says he's hiding Evie to protect her, that she did something terrible back home in Melbourne. In a house that creaks against the wind, Evie begins to piece together her fractured memories of the events that led her here. Jim says he's keeping her safe. Evie's not sure she can trust Jim, but can she trust her own memories?

Bianca Bernini did not foresee she would inspire her own murder when she boarded the legendary Ghan for the two-day train trip from Sydney to Alice Springs. As the most read, most listened to gossip columnist in Australia, she was revelling in her power to ruin the lives of eight other passengers, eight highly placed, privileged people, who were determined on hiding their secrets at any cost. What would they pay to stop the public revelations she could and would make?

The first murder is brazen, violent and ritualistic. Committed in the victim’s home, the killer leaves few clues as to their motive or their identity. All the police know is that the perpetrator entered the house and impaled the art collector on one of his own priceless sculptures before melting away into the night. Inspector Eric Ringer is desperate for Dr Jane Halifax to profile the killer, but Jane is cautious. She and Eric have a past … plus, she hates these kinds of cases; a psychopath is a psychopath, any way you slice it.

Former housemates Mac and Erika are homeless. Well, Erika is fine, she just has to live with her parents until she can find another rental. Mac's situation is much worse—family isn't an option and she's surfing the couches of her increasingly exasperated friends. Driving around one lonely afternoon, Mac discovers Barren Cape. Once destined to be a luxury escape, now it's just wire fence and gray cement. It's stark, but quiet. There's no harm in staying a little while…

Widowed and at a crossroads in her life, Sandra Porter knows she must find the courage to find her true self. Deciding it's time to push her boundaries, she makes a booking to trek the Larapinta Walk across the centre of the remote Northern Territory. Renowned nature photographer Graysen Hughes has come to the outback seeking solace after the death of his wife. Always a loner, Graysen isn't happy when the tour guide insists on the participants walking in pairs. After a suspicious accident and the sudden disappearance of their guide, the group struggles on.

Finn and her best friend, Daphne, have grown up together in a small town in the Blue Mountains, NSW. Bonded by both having lost a younger sister to suicide, they've always had a close - sometimes too close - friendship. Now in their twenties, their lives have finally started to diverge: Daphne is at university and Finn is working in the Mountains, as well as falling in love with a beautiful newcomer called Magdu. Unused to sharing Finn, Daphne starts to act up in ways that will allow her to maintain the control over her best friend she's always relished.

Before the woman went over the cliff, Pippa and Gabe were happy. They had the kind of marriage that everyone envies, as well as two sweet young daughters, a supportive family, and a picturesque cliff-side home—which would have been idyllic had the tall beachside cliffs not become so popular among those wishing to end their lives. Gabe has become somewhat of a local hero since they moved to the cliff house, talking seven people down from stepping off the edge. But when Gabe fails to save the eighth, Amanda, a sordid web of secrets begins to unravel.