Australian Mystery

Aboard a luxury passenger train in the desolate Russian Far East, Slater heads for the port city of Vladivostok with a mysterious grudge. After traumatic past events, he was reluctant to return to the region, but he’s got unfinished business to attend to. Terrified passengers, secret police, and shadowy underworld figures are just the beginning. Arriving in Vladivostok, he finds something wretched–something dark, twisted and shocking.

The two identical brothers seemed perfect in every way—handsome, intelligent, popular—until a shocking summer night when one brother killed his parents in cold blood while the other brother had an iron-clad alibi. But which twin was where during the murders? Years later, the twins are long estranged, each convinced that the other is responsible for the death of their parents. Married with children of their own, they are finally ready to clear one name at the expense of the other and turn to Laurie Moran and her team to reinvestigate their parents’ murder.

Tikka Malloy was 11 and one-sixth years old during the long hot summer of 1992, living in an Australian suburb with her sister and their three best friends. That summer was when the Van Apfel sisters, Ruth, Hannah, and the beautiful Cordelia, mysteriously disappeared. Did they just run - far away from their harsh, evangelical parents - or were they taken? While the search for the girls united the small community, the mystery of their disappearance was never solved. Now, years later, Tikka has returned home to try to make sense of that strange moment in time.

The Australian Outback is a hot, remote, desolate place to die. Skeletal remains of several young women have been discovered in the bottom of a long-abandoned well, and major crime investigators Russell Foley and Sam Rose are assigned to the case. Foley and Rose soon learn a number of young backpackers, traveling around Australia on the adventure of a lifetime, have been reported missing in the area. Are these the remains of those unfortunate young women?

When 650 of the world's most violent human beings pour out from Pronghorn Correctional Facility into the Nevada Desert, the biggest manhunt in US history begins. But for John Kradle, this is his one chance to prove his innocence, 26 years after the murder of his wife and child. He just needs to stay one step ahead of the teams of law enforcement officers he knows will be chasing the escapees down.

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.

Darwin, Summer, 1963. The humidity sat heavy and thick over the town as Senior Constable Ned Potter looked down at a body that had been dragged from the shallow marshland. He didn't need a coroner to tell him this was a bad death. He didn't know then that this was only the first. Or that he was about to risk everything looking for answers.

In the drought-ridden rangelands of Western Australia, Gabe Ahern makes his living trapping wild dogs for local station owners. Still coming to terms with his wife's death - and the part he played in it - the old bushman leads a solitary life. Until one morning, when he rescues a young Afghan man, Altair, from certain execution. Now, with a gang of people smugglers on his tail and the lives of Altair's family on the line, Gabe is drawn into a ruthless game of cat and mouse. His main opponent is Chase Hunter, a kangaroo hunter with bush skills as wily and sharp as his own.

Frankie Gray has come to the island for the summer, hoping for one last shot at reconnecting with her teenage daughter, Izzy, before starting a job as a deputy sheriff. They are staying with her mother, Diana, at The Fairmile Inn, soon to be a boutique hotel, but when an elderly nun is found dead in suspicious circumstances, and then a tiny skeleton is discovered in the grounds of the house, Frankie is desperate for answers.

Tully and Rachel are murderous when they discover their father has a new girlfriend. The fact that Heather is half his age isn't even the most shocking part. Stephen is still married to their mother, who is in a care facility with end-stage Alzheimer's disease. Heather knows she has an uphill battle to win Tully and Rachel over, while carrying the burden of the secrets of her past. But, as it turns out, they are all hiding something.

With DS Manolis on leave in Greece, Senior Constable Sparrow receives a phone call from a man who wants to turn himself in. Bob is sixty years old, confined to a Perth nursing home. But thirty years ago, he killed a man in the remote northern Kimberley mining region. He offers to show Sparrow where the body is, but there's a catch: Sparrow must travel north with him under the guise of being his carer.

Australian Ghost Stories is a spine-tingling collection of true crime tales that will leave you feeling haunted long after you've heard the last word. From the ghostly apparitions that haunt historic landmarks to diabolical presences in everyday suburban houses, these are stories of ordinary Australians and their encounters with the unexplainable.

Emma Cameron, a recently divorced farmer and a local in Barker, runs Deception Creek, the farm that three generations of her family have owned before her. Every day, Emma pushes herself hard on the land, hoping to make 10-year-old memories of a terrible car accident disappear. And now, there are more recent nightmares of an ex-husband who refuses to understand how much the farm means to Emma. When Joel Hammond is released from jail and heads home to Barker, Detective Dave Burrows and his officer, Senior Sergeant Jack Higgins, are on high alert.

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....

Called in to examine what is left of a body struck by lightning, Tempe traces an unusual tattoo to its source and is soon embroiled in a much larger case. Young men – tourists – have been disappearing on the islands of Turks and Caicos for years. Seven years ago, the first victim was found in a strange location with both hands cut off; the other visitors vanished without a trace. But, recently, tantalising leads have emerged and only Tempe can unravel them.

Queensland in 1976 churns with corruption. When Detective Ray Windsor defies it, he is exiled deep into the state's west. Royalton is a town on its knees and plagued by crimes left largely un-investigated by the local police chief, Kennedy, and his elusive boss. Mutual dislike between Kennedy and Ray gradually turns ugly as Ray and his new partner, Arshag, uncover a pattern of crimes that no one seems concerned about solving. But when two girls from local immigrant families are found dead and another disappears, Ray and Arshag are forced to take the law into their own hands.

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.

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.

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?

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.