Australian Mystery

Detective Superintendent Jack Hawksworth of Scotland Yard has headed up three major serial operations, and in each of these cases, it seems he has lost a part of himself. He is burnt out and taken a shift sideways for a while, taking on a low-profile role of desk investigator out of London that's looking into whether a global crime scam exists. But when a number of young women start returning home ill and dying after travels in Europe, Jack uncovers a shocking black-market operation, with links that lead him all the way to a crime syndicate in South Australia.

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?

After an election upheaval, Dominic Cochrane decides it's time to leave his twenty-year political staffer career behind. He opts to stay in a friend's converted waterside boatshed in a quiet bay in a Sydney backwater. The long-time neighbours take Dom into their fold, but his peaceful retreat is quickly upended as he becomes embroiled in a tragic mystery. As money sharks circle treasured family homes in the secluded community, tensions mount as their way of life is threatened, secrets are exposed and old wounds reopened.

Akashic Books continues its award-winning series of original noir anthologies with Sidney Noir. This collection comprises of all new stories set in Sidney, Australia, by 14 authors of crime fiction....

Young, petite, boyish and full of charm, Alice was the only woman in Australia to successfully pull off an almost impossible feat: without family or husband to back her financially, she built a garage to her own specifications and established the country's only motor service run entirely by women.

In an isolated village in the mountains of Andalusia, a mysterious Frenchwoman begins work on a dangerous memoir. It is the story of a man she once loved in the Beirut of old, and a child taken from her in treason's name. The woman is the keeper of the Kremlin's most closely guarded secret. Long ago, the KGB inserted a mole into the heart of the West - a mole who stands on the doorstep of ultimate power. Only one man can unravel the conspiracy: Gabriel Allon, the legendary art restorer and assassin who serves as the chief of Israel's vaunted secret intelligence service.

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.

After a tumultuous school term, a family holiday with sunshine, sleep-ins and Portuguese tarts is just what Kensy and Max need. And Granny Cordelia is adamant: there are to be no investigations while on vacation. But when strange incidents start piling up, the twins are torn between their loyalty and their nose for adventure. As all leads point to the annual E-Prix championship, Kensy and Max find themselves drawn into the middle of a menacing plot.

Police are baffled by several deaths, each unique and bizarre in their own way - and shockingly brutal. Scotland Yard sends in its crack DCI, the enigmatic Jack Hawksworth, who wastes no time in setting up Operation Mirror. His chief wants him to dismiss any plausibility of a serial killer before the media gets on the trail. With his best investigative team around him, Jack resorts to some unconventional methods to disprove or find a link to the gruesome deaths.

New Year's Eve, 1989. Eighteen-year-old Ingrid Mathers is hitchhiking her way to Alice Springs. Bored, hungover and separated from her friend, Joanne, she accepts a lift to the remote town of Cutters End. July 2021. Detective Sergeant Mark Ariti is seconded to a recently reopened case, one in which he has a personal connection. Three decades ago, a burnt and broken body was discovered in scrub off the Stuart Highway, 300 kilometres south of Cutters End. Though ultimately ruled an accidental death, many people - including a high-profile celebrity - are convinced it was murder.

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.

For 35 years, the United States and Russia each had their own superhero. Three days ago, America's hero died. Today will be bad. In the face of an overwhelming attack, one young woman—unassuming and anonymous—might be America's only hope. Her codename...Cobalt Blue.

When Rebecca Bundy fails to return home after the last day of school in 1984 her father reports her missing. But the teenager has run away before and recently she's been bragging about going to Queensland, so the police tell the family to wait it out. Days pass. Rumours swirl. A man seen loitering near the bus stop might have followed her. Was there something going on between Rebecca and a male teacher? What about the sheep farmer on Glen Lochan Road where she babysat? And why is her boyfriend, the rough cattle guy Bull Tennant, so sure something sinister has happened?

Forensic pathologist Kay Scarpetta has returned to Virginia as the chief medical examiner. She and her husband, Benton, are headquartered five miles from the Pentagon, in a post-pandemic world that's been torn apart by civil and political unrest. Just weeks into the job, Scarpetta is called to investigate a woman's body that has been shockingly displayed on railroad tracks. As Scarpetta follows the trail, it leads unnervingly close to her own neighborhood....

America is reeling from the national blackout that swept the nation, continuing to dig out of the power outage. And the new president is unlike any Mitch has worked with in the past; he is extremely dictatorial and sees cracks in America's democratic institutions that he believes can be exploited to put his family in power permanently. As Mitch backs away from the new president, he in turn questions Rapp's loyalty. Mitch decides to take a much needed break and moves to his house in Cape Town, where he gets pulled into a job with Nicholas Ward, the world's first trillionaire.

When Mitch Rapp captures ISIS’s top technology expert, he reveals that he was on his way to meet a man who claims to have the ability to bring down America’s power grid. Rapp is determined to eliminate this shadowy figure, but the CIA’s trap fails. The Agency is still trying to determine what went wrong when ISIS operatives help this cyber terrorist do what he said he could - plunge the country into darkness. With no concept of how this unprecedented act was accomplished, the task of getting the power back on could take months. Perhaps even years.

When Sassi Stapleton receives a middle-of-the-night phone call to tell her that her beloved grandmother is unwell, she quickly puts her job on hold, packs her ute and sets off on the long drive home, knowing her grandfather will need her. Less than an hour away from Sassi's hometown, Barker, she swerves to miss a roo and her car rolls down an embankment. By the time Sassi is found, her grandmother has already passed away.

The only way to save your child is to kidnap another. Listen carefully. Your child has been kidnapped. You must abduct someone else's child to save your own. Disobey. Break the rules. Go to the cops. Your child will die. Your victim's parents must kidnap another child before yours is released. You are now part of the chain.

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

When last we encountered Gabriel Allon in Portrait of a Spy, he was pitted in a blood-soaked duel with a deadly network of jihadist terrorists. Now, exposed and war-weary, he has returned to his beloved Rome to restore a Caravaggio masterpiece for the Vatican. But early one morning Gabriel is summoned by his friend and occasional ally Monsignor Luigi Donati, the all-powerful private secretary to the Pope. The broken body of a beautiful woman lies beneath Michelangelo's magnificent dome. Donati calls upon Gabriel to pursue the truth—was it suicide, or something more sinister?