Australian Thrillers

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.

Maitland 1913. Miss Elizabeth Quinn is something of an institution in Maitland Town. For longer than anyone could remember she and her brother, businessman Michael, have lived in the impressive two-story stone house next to the church. When she is discovered cowering in the corner of the exhibition gallery at the Technical College the entire town knows something strange has come to pass. Was it the prehistoric remains or perhaps the taxidermy exhibition that had reduced the whale-boned encased pillar of society to a quivering mess? Or something about a striking painting on loan?

The first drops start to fall when Quinn spies the body. With no reception and nothing but an empty road for miles, does she stop to help or keep driving to safety? Back at the iconic country pub where Quinn works, Andrea is sandbagging the place in preparation for heavy rains. Alone with her sleeping son in the back room, she reluctantly lets a biker in to wait out the storm. Out on the wet roads, tensions arise among four backpackers on their way to Darwin. They haven’t prepared for this kind of weather and the flooding isn’t the only threat on the horizon.

After being double-crossed by a devious colleague, career woman Ellie Conlan quits her job on principle. With no idea what to do next, she retreats to Storm Harbour, an idyllic Victorian beach town. Ellie's grandfather runs The Storm Harbour Chronicle, the trusted local newspaper. As Ellie is drawn into a story about a development which could split the coastal community - and involves her with the influential O'Neill family - an event she has long suppressed threatens to overwhelm her.

1987. He remembered little about the aftermath of the accident except clinging to the side rail of his silent wife’s bed, the tubes in and out of her criss-crossing like fencing wire. The baby was somewhere else and he didn’t get to see her until they’d confirmed that his wife would never walk again and maybe not even remember who he was. The baby, miraculously, was untouched.2017. Since the car accident that altered her family’s lives, Grace Worthington has always been a loner. Now, with her father’s death, she is truly alone. When she reads about Alexander Cameron’s search for...

A young woman's quest to heal a family rift entangles her in one of Australia's greatest historical puzzles when an intricately illustrated map offers a clue to the fate of a long-lost girl. A mesmerizing historical mystery set in the Hunter Valley from best-selling author Tea Cooper for fans of Natasha Lester and Kate Morton.

In "Uncle from Australia", a typical fun-and-games short story, Ellery interprets the dying message of an uncle from down under and must determine which of his greedy relatives skewered him for an inheritance.

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....

Deep in the middle of the Nevada desert, the Xymos Corporation has built a state-of-the-art fabrication plant, surrounded by miles and miles of nothing but cactus and coyote. Eight people are trapped inside because outside, waiting for them, looking for them, is a self-replicating, fast-evolving swarm made up of predatory molecules that they themselves created. On a singular level, the molecules are seemingly harmless, but massed together, they form an intelligent organism that is anything but benign. They must find a way to stop this creature before it gets inside.

Australia has been invaded. While the outnumbered Australian Defence Force fights on the ground, in the air, and at sea, this quickly becomes a war involving ordinary people. Ben, an IT consultant, has never fought a day in his life. Will he survive? Grant, a security guard at Sydney's International Airport, finds himself captured and living in the filth and squalor of one of the concentration camps dotted around Australia. Knowing death awaits him if he stays, he plans a daring escape.

Eleanor Jones has just started at her ninth high school in less than five years. Since she and her mum are always moving on, Eleanor likes to stay on the outer, to stay invisible. So maybe it's just bad luck that the very first person she talks to at Cooinda Secondary College, Angus Marshall, is stabbed and left for dead the same day. The last message on Angus's phone is from Eleanor Jones.

Twenty years ago Charlie Deravin's mother went missing near the family beach shack—believed murdered; body never found. His father has lived under a cloud of suspicion ever since. Now Charlie's back living in the shack in Menlo Beach, on disciplinary leave from his job with the police sex-crimes unit, and permanent leave from his marriage. After two decades worrying away at the mystery of his mother's disappearance, he's run out of leads. Then the skeletal remains of two people are found in the excavation of a new building site—and the past comes crashing in on Charlie.

For years the firefighters of New York's Engine 99 have rushed fearlessly into hot zones, saving countless lives and stopping devastating blazes in their tracks. They've also stolen millions from banks, jewellery stores and art galleries. With their inside knowledge and specialist equipment they've become the most successful heist crew on the East Coast. Their newest member, Andrea 'Andy' Nearland, is not what she seems either. She's an undercover operative, hunting the men of Engine 99 for a host of crimes - including the murder of an off-duty cop and the disappearance of a mother and child.

Chrissy, a journalism lecturer struggling to re-enter the workforce after maternity leave, stumbles upon a decades-old mystery that could be her ticket back into the career she loves. A photograph of four young women in ski wear, taken in the Snowy Mountains in 1980, leads her to a chilling double-murder case that was never solved. Michael and Gloria Katzenbach vanished during a white-out, their bodies uncovered months later when the ice melted. The case went cold, but Chrissy is determined to find the truth.

Mitchell is a brilliant biologist, committed to the environment and the growing global anti-natalist movement. For one month each year he lives with his colleague Frances in a utopia of radical equality and scientific dedication in Antarctica. They are concluding the Anarctos Project: a seed vault in an isolated, secret location. It is a biodiversity insurance policy against humanity’s devastating effects on the rapidly warming planet.

On the way to Isle of Palms, a barrier island off the South Carolina coast, forensic anthropologist Temperance Brennan receives a call from the Charleston coroner. During the storm, a medical waste container has washed up on the beach. Inside are two decomposed bodies wrapped in plastic sheeting and bound with electrical wire. Chillingly, Tempe recognizes many details as identical to those of an unsolved case she handled in Quebec 15 years earlier.

When Emily's beautiful cousin Aspen goes missing somewhere in the Outback, no one seems to take it seriously, not even the police. After all, Aspen has a history of drug use and a string of broken relationships to her name. But Emily knows that her disappearance is totally out of character, so she books a flight to the Northern Territory to find her. Emily's search takes her south of Darwin to every road stop and tourist trap she can find, but the only person who turns up is the last person she expected to see, her ex-husband Ben. But there is a violent killer on the loose.

Ryan and Elsie Delaney don't accept the official line that their young daughter drowned on Santa Monica beach. Her body has never been found and their pleas for a proper investigation are rejected. So now the desperate pair are raining hellfire on the police. Taking three hostages at the Hertzberg-Davis Forensic Science Center, they give law enforcement an ultimatum: if Tilly isn't located in the next 24 hours, they will destroy evidence in several major cases. Detective Charlie Hoskins only just survived five years embedded with the ruthless gang known as the Death Machines.

'In 1954, at just fourteen years of age, Mabel Waller became the youngest Australian in history to be convicted of murder.' In 2025, on a quiet Melbourne lane, an elderly man is found dead by his neighbour, 81-year-old Elsie Fitzpatrick. No one suspects any foul play. Until they discover Elsie's past. In the 1950s, her name was not Elsie. It was Mabel. 'She is known around the world as Mad Mabel. But is she mad? More importantly, is she guilty?' When the police open a new investigation and the media descend upon her, the elderly Mabel decides it's time to set the record straight.

Meet our narrator: witty, nosy, professional weaver of lies - aka ghostwriter for the rich and famous - and now, lander of The Dream Assignment (that is, a politician's tell-all memoir). Enter Dorothy Gibson: recently toppled Presidential Candidate, aka that woman, the most talked-about person in the country right now (for the wrong reasons).