Australian Fiction Mysteries

For half a lifetime, journalist Martin Scarsden has run from his past. But now there is no escaping. He'd vowed never to return to his hometown, Port Silver, and its traumatic memories. But now his new partner, Mandy Blonde, has inherited an old house in the seaside town, and Martin knows their chance of a new life together won't come again. Martin arrives to find his best friend from school days brutally murdered and Mandy the chief suspect. With the police curiously reluctant to pursue other suspects, Martin goes searching for the killer. And finds the past waiting for him.

1967: Hazel's new job at the docks quickly turns perilous when she stumbles into the criminal underworld that lurks beneath the surface. A million in gold coins has vanished from a cargo ship and a dead body washed up. Suddenly, she's in over her head. Disillusioned with her life, Betty is led astray by a charismatic new friend and finds herself exposed in more ways than one - until a crisis drags her back to reality. Living in a high-class brothel, Irene gets wind of a threat that could destroy her livelihood.

Evelyn Varley has always been ambitious and clever. As a girl, she earned a scholarship to a prestigious academy well above her parents’ means, gaining her a best friend from one of England’s wealthiest families. In 1939, with an Oxford degree in hand and war looming, Evelyn finds herself recruited into an elite MI5 counterintelligence unit. A secret society seeks an alliance with Germany and, posing as a Nazi sympathizer, Evelyn must build a case to expose their treachery. But as she is drawn deeper into duplicity, some of those close to her become embroiled in her investigation.

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.

The Central Intelligence Agency is in crisis. Following the collapse of the Soviet Union, Congress is questioning the organisation’s necessity. Interim CIA director Thomas Stansfield must fight for his agency’s survival while explaining why the previous candidate for his job was found murdered in a French hotel – surrounded by booze, cash, and dead men. Worst yet, a brilliantly run sting operation in Moscow has resulted in the arrest of America’s most prized Russian asset and the expulsion of his CIA handler.

Prepare yourself for an exhilarating journey through humanity’s most profound questions in this gripping novel. Meet Albert, a boy genetically engineered for unparalleled intelligence, torn from the arms of his parents, and thrust into a world that cannot understand him. As Albert breaks free from his captors in a daring escape, he embarks on a path that challenges conventional notions of right and wrong. Detective Miriam Hunter is hot on his trail, determined to bring him to justice. But could there be more to Albert than meets the eye? Is he merely a victim, desperate to comprehend his ...

The hand of fate, that had torn their lives apart, is now set to make their worlds collide once again. BOUND TO SARAH will set you on a roller-coaster of emotions, graphic in description and action packed. This story is brutal and shockingly unpredictable. In the year 1823, at the height of the British Empire and the colonization of Australia, Pat Roche sits on board a convict ship, sentenced for the term of his natural life to the New Colonies. All hope of ever seeing his wife and child again appeared to be lost. The ship is a fraught with tension under such a strict military guard; with ...

Eve and Leah are identical twins - but beyond that, they’re polar opposites. Struggling journalist Leah envies Eve’s seemingly perfect life - the loyal husband, the beautiful twin daughters, the stellar career - little knowing that what Eve longs for most is Leah’s independence. When a shocking event upends their world, one woman seizes a split-second chance to change everything and follow her sister down a different life path.

Constable Jenny Williams took a job in a remote opal mining town for answers. When the case surrounding her missing cousin goes cold, she embraces an invitation to party with the locals. But the night is cut short when the live music event turns into a crowded crime scene. A high-pitched scream and the smell of burning flesh has left a woman burned to death. No one saw the perpetrator, not even Jenny. Now it’s her job to catch the psychopath before they kill again. With no ID, no witnesses and no one coming forward who knows the woman, her case has no leads—not even a motive.

One lonely night, a cabbie discovers that his intoxicated passenger has been suffocated with a handkerchief saturated in chloroform. The murderer, the victim, and the motive are all unknown. Fergus Hume's first literary attempt, became the best-selling mystery novel of the 19th century.

The impeccably dressed Miss Kate Cocks might look more like a schoolmistress than a policewoman, but don't let that fool you. She's a household name, wrangling wayward husbands, seeing through deceptive clairvoyants, and rescuing young women (whether they like it or not) with the help of a five-foot cane and her sassy junior constable, Ethel Bromley. When shop assistant Dora Black is found dead on a city beach, Miss Cocks and Ethel are ordered to stay out of the investigation and leave it to the men. But when Dora's workmate goes missing soon after, the women suspect something sinister.

Thanks to a nomadic childhood, Revelle Lee is fluent in ten languages, which she puts to use at crime scenes and in courtrooms across London. Being a court interpreter is a stressful job, one that makes her privy to the most personal and often dark details of others’ lives. In the meantime, she’s close to adopting a six-year-old boy named Elliot from foster care. Revelle is determined to be the mother she never had, and to make up for a terrible mistake she made years ago.

Australia has always been a land of mysteries. Some are ancient, some are historical and many continue to perplex us today—and will probably continue to do so tomorrow. More often than most of us would like to think, things simply vanish and people disappear without explanation, leaving a trail of heartbreak across generations. Australia also has its fair share of buried loot and fabulous riches gone missing—somewhere. Master storyteller Graham Seal has gathered mysteries from around Australia.

It's night, and the walls of Rachel's home creak in the darkness of the Australian bush. Her fear of other people has led her to a reclusive life as far from them as possible, her only occasional contact with her sister. A hammering on the door. There stand a mother, Hannah, and her sick baby. They are running for their lives from a mysterious death sweeping the Australian countryside - so soon, too soon, after everything.

Jack goes on a second honeymoon and encounters raging floods, a hot air balloon that goes ballistic, and a car that is sinking in quicksand. He goes back to work where it's safe and is accosted by a Bikie with a grudge. There is a fight, Jacks beaten to a pulp, but he's the last man standing. Then he collapses. He undergoes emergency surgery and must contemplate life in a wheelchair! If that isn't enough he has to cope with a high school reunion that goes badly wrong, a gun toting husband and an unhinged scientist with a nuclear bomb. It takes all Jack's resourcefulness, his ability to ...

While estranged twins Oliver and Theo Wingfield are identical in appearance, they couldn't be more different. Theo, an extrovert verging on arrogant, was always a drifter, a nomad, operating on the fringes of the law. Oliver, intense, creative and introspective, was destined to become a winemaker. Each vintage, every bottle from Oliver's Mudgee-based label, Four Dogs Missing, sells out. And now, after fifteen years without contact, Theo unexpectedly turns up at his brother's vineyard, bearing an invitation that his twin knows nothing about.

Meet Jack Stalwart. Code name: COURAGE. Jack is an ordinary kid who becomes a secret agent by night, thwarting evil all over the world as he searches for his missing brother, Max. Destination: Australia. A diver has vanished from the Great Barrier Reef, along with unknown treasure from the wreck of the HMS Pandora. Can Secret Agent Jack Stalwart find the diver and defeat a deadly band of pirates before they sail away with the treasure forever? Read more about Jack’s thrilling adventures as he travels the globe....

Detective Rebecca Giles has just finished interviewing aging petty crim Sticky Pete over a spate of break-and-enters when a disturbing new report comes in. Twelve-year-old Kayleen Ellis has vanished from her home in Muswellbrook in the Upper Hunter Valley. Hours later, Giles is a local hero, having apparently solved Kayleen's case and the spate of jewellery thefts. Yet the hangover from her celebrations has barely kicked in when the body of young jillaroo Ava Emmerson is discovered in gruesome circumstances on a nearby farm.

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.

On the rugged West Coast of New Zealand, Golden Cove is more than just a town where people live. The adults are more than neighbours; the children, more than schoolmates. That is until one fateful summer - and several vanished bodies - shatters the trust holding Golden Cove together. All that's left are whispers behind closed doors, broken friendships, and a silent agreement not to look back. But they can't run from the past forever.