Australian Thrillers

Counter terrorism expert Sid Allen knows nothing good ever comes from a phone call at five a.m. Politician Dan LeRoi, chairman of the Joint Committee on Intelligence and Security, has been shot. Four bullets to the head. The crime scene is chaotic. Homicide. Counter Terrorism. Media. And for Sid, hunting the killer is going to get complicated. Journalist Zephyr Wilde is complicated. She's tenacious and she's got Sid's number. Sid knows the gossip: how Zephyr's mother was murdered when Zephyr was a kid. He doesn't know that Zephyr is still getting letters from her long-dead mother.

Sidney Allen is a Fed. Part of the Australian Federal Police's K block, a unit doing whatever it takes in order to stop terrorist attacks on home soil. But when young Muslim men on the Terror Watchlist start turning up dead, Sid and his partner, Haifa, have to work out what's going on. Sectarian war? Drugs? Retribution? For Sid, there's nothing unclear about a bullet to the head and a severed hand. Someone is sending a message....

For police officers Steve Fraser and Tess Ballard, a split-second decision saves the lives of 50 members of a cult - but also puts their careers on the line. Tess' work is everything to her; she's forged a new life through sheer determination, so when her past returns to haunt her, Steve must race through wild country if he is to save the people he most cares about.

Is your loved one missing some body parts? Are blondes becoming extinct? Is everyone at your dinner table of the same species? It's 2006: Do you know who all your children are? Do you know humans and chimpanzees differ in only 400 genes? And why does an adult human being resemble a chimp fetus? Welcome to our genetic world. Fast, furious, and out of control, this is not the world of the future—it's the world right now. Most of the events in this audiobook have already happened. And the rest are just around the corner.

After the violent death of her husband, Callie Jones retreats to a cottage in the grounds of an old mansion in Tasmania. The relative remoteness of the place and the wild beauty of the Tasmanian landscape are a balm to her shattered nerves, and the locals seem friendly, particularly horseman Connor Atherton and his siblings at the nearby property, Calico Lodge. But all is not well: The old mansion has a sinister past, one associated with witchcraft and murder.

Detective Sergeant Rick Zadow is angry, unmotivated, unwashed, unkempt and almost entirely reliant on his guide dog, Scout, and voice-controlled personal assistant Siri to make it through each day: one a voice without a body, the other a body without a voice. Left blind after a bullet wound to the head two years before, he is caught up in a workers' compensation battle between two psychiatrists - one acting for him and one appointed by WorkCover - over how much compo he should be awarded.

When your builder finds bones under the floor of your heritage home, what do you do? For TV researcher Poppy McGowan, the first step is to find out if the bones are human (which means calling in the cops and delaying her renovations) or animal (which doesn't). Unfortunately, "help" comes in the form of Dr Julieanne Weaver, archaeologist, political hopeful, and Poppy's old enemy. She declares the bones evidence of a rare breed of fat-tailed sheep, and slaps a heritage order on the site.

Early 1800s. Thomasina Trelora is on her way to the colonies. Her fate: to be married to a clergyman she's never met. As the Australian coastline comes into view a storm wrecks the ship and leaves her lying on the rocks, near death. She's saved by an Aboriginal man who carries her to the door of a grand European house, Willowbrae.

Thomas and Viv Adler have a picture-perfect family. Affluent and attractive, with two well-mannered kids almost out of the nest, they live in a beautiful house in a well-to-do neighborhood. Their jobs are secure; their children are thriving; the world is their oyster. Until one morning, when they wake up to find that their house and car have been pelted with eggs. Thomas dismisses it as the work of a few out-of-control kids, but when a smoke bomb is tossed on their front lawn, and the tires on their BMW are punctured, he begins to worry.

In the cold, wet summer of 1960, 11-year-old Joy Henderson lives in constant fear of her father. She tries to make him happy but, as he keeps reminding her, she is nothing but a filthy sinner destined for Hell.... Yet, decades later, she returns to the family's farm to nurse him on his death bed. To her surprise, her 'perfect' sister, Ruth, is also there, whispering dark words, urging revenge. Then the day after their father finally confesses to a despicable crime, Joy finds him dead - with a belt pulled tight around his neck.

Natasha Mori and Bryan Ferrago work for the Net Force Cyber Squad, an elite government agency created to lead the charge against America’s online enemies. They’ve travelled to Maine’s coast for a project to study extreme weather forecasting - and hopefully enjoy a little vacation.

Tikka Molloy was eleven and one-sixth years old during the long hot summer of 1992—the summer the Van Apfel sisters disappeared. Hannah, beautiful Cordelia and Ruth vanished during the night of the school's Showstopper concert at the amphitheater by the river, surrounded by encroaching bushland. Now, years later, Tikka has returned home to try and make sense of the summer that shaped her, and the girls that she never forgot. Blackly comic, sharply observed and wonderfully endearing, this is a haunting coming-of-age story with a shimmering, unexplained mystery at its heart.

You should not have come to the island. You should not have been speeding. You should not have tried to hide the body. You should not have told your children that you could keep them safe. No one can run forever.

Zara Jones believes in magic because the alternative is too painful to consider - that her murdered sister is gone forever and there is nothing she can do about it. Rather than grieving and moving on, Zara decides she will do whatever it takes to claw her sister back from the grave - even trading in the occult. Jude Wolf may be the daughter of a billionaire, but she is also undeniably cursed. After a deal with a demon went horribly wrong, her soul has been slowly turning necrotic. It's a miserable existence marred by pain, sickness, and monstrous things that taunt her in the night.

Kate arrives on the wild, remote island of Rathlin in the freezing Irish Channel for a ten-day writers’ retreat. Plagued by memories she can’t unravel and desperate to understand the breakdown of her marriage, Kate is determined to leave the retreat with answers. As the retreat’s director uses techniques that tap into the eerie mythology of the island, Kate becomes increasingly fascinated by him and her surrounds. But when the temperature plummets and the strange therapy intensifies, her memories unspool.

Within hours of arriving in New York City, Jane is dragged into a case and finds herself up against one of the toughest minds she’s ever had to crack: a Silicon Valley billionaire whose ex-business partner has just been murdered. Sarah Noble is the darling of the tech world–the genius behind an AI defence system that hijacks enemy missiles. But when Sarah’s estranged business partner is killed in a mysterious plane crash, suspicion immediately falls on one of the few people who could hack the plane’s guidance system and had a motive to do so: Sarah herself.

Camryn Lane is living her dream: after years of struggle and rejection, her first novel has finally been published. She’s on top of the world–until she receives a disturbing email from an unknown sender. Rattled, Camryn swallows the sick feeling and resolves to put the missive out of her mind. But when she checks her ratings online, she finds an aggressive one-star review, and soon Camryn’s book is flooded with negative reviews and publicity. Could the reviewer be the same person who sent the ugly email? And why do they want to ruin her?

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.

For much of their lives, Joy has been telling Cassie and Andie one big, fat lie: that they are from the future, and that when they turn 21 they will travel back to the year 2050. What started as a colourful tale to explain how the girls came to live with her has now become a decade's-long deception. Worse still, Joy has started to believe it herself. The big lie is certainly preferable to the truth she just can't face - about what happened to the girls' real mother, Britney; and how far Joy's gone to keep them 'safe'...

London, 1850. Constance Horton has disappeared. Maude, her older sister, knows only that Constance abandoned the apothecary they call home, and, disguised as a boy, boarded a ship bound for the Arctic. She never returned. 'A tragic accident', the Admiralty called it. But Maude Horton knows something isn't right. When she finds Constance's journal, it becomes clear that the truth is being buried by sinister forces. To find answers - and deliver justice for her sister - Maude must step into London's dark underbelly, and into the path of dangerous, powerful men.