Australian Fiction Mysteries

In the neon-drenched alleys of Budapest, Will Slater comes face to face with his past. Jason King is back–and he brings devastating news. When Slater agrees to help King get revenge, they quickly find themselves in a fight they know very little about. Because the world is changing and technology is rapidly advancing, spiralling toward a total transformation of society. There is a new breed of terrorist–the next step in human evolution. As the truth unravels, the terror amplifies. And by the time it's over, they both find out that there is a fate far, far worse than death.

When Detective Constable Lillian Tate arrives at a remote paleontological research site in the harsh Nullarbor Plain, she expects a routine missing person case. Dr. Noah Henshaw, a respected scientist studying ancient fossils, has vanished into the red dust of the Australian desert. What begins as a straightforward welfare check quickly transforms into something more sinister. The discovery of Dr. Henshaw's body reveals a brutal murder that shatters the quiet academic world of fossil research and threatens to expose secrets that powerful people will kill to protect. As Tate delves deeper ...

Detective Senior Constable Riley Murphy thought Lightning Ridge was career exile—a remote opal mining town where the biggest crimes were petty theft and neighbourly disputes. Then respected opal dealer Elena Kozlov is found brutally murdered in her ransacked workshop, and Riley's routine investigation spirals into something far more dangerous. Elena wasn't killed for her valuable stones—she was eliminated for asking the wrong questions about suspicious corporate activity. As Riley digs deeper, she uncovers Asset Beta, a covert operative who's been surveilling Lightning Ridge residents ...

In the twilight of his career, Logan learns he has been a vessel for furthering government interests, not a rogue hitman for a band of vigilantes. The revelation destroys him. But when Jorge Romero—an investigative reporter and Logan's oldest friend—is brutally and inexplicably murdered, Logan allows his fury to deliver him from despair. With an ally in Alice Mason, a homeless witness with a target on her back, Logan goes to war. Against whom, he isn't sure, but he knows powerful forces are at work behind the scenes.

Inti Flynn arrives in Scotland with her twin sister, Aggie, to lead a team of biologists tasked with reintroducing 14 grey wolves into the remote Highlands. She hopes to heal not only the dying landscape, but Aggie, too, unmade by the terrible secrets that drove the sisters out of Alaska. Inti is not the woman she once was, either, changed by the harm she's witnessed - inflicted by humans on both the wild and each other. Yet as the wolves surprise everyone by thriving, Inti begins to let her guard down, even opening herself up to the possibility of love.

An arsonist is on the loose in Colmstock, Australia, most recently burning down the town's courthouse and killing a young boy who was trapped inside. In the weeks after the courthouse fire, precise porcelain replicas of Colmstock's daughters begin turning up on doorsteps, terrifying parents and testing the limits of the town's already fractured police force. Aspiring journalist Rose may have finally found her story. But as her articles gain traction and the boundaries of her investigation blur, Colmstock is seized by a seething paranoia.

A young woman is found dead in her isolated town house in rural Red Creek, an up-and-coming wine tourism destination outside Sydney. No forced entry. No signs of struggle. And her geologist husband has an alibi, though it’s not exactly solid. While a tabloid journalist is quick to spin her own damning narrative, homicide detective Rose Riley is questioning everything she sees—especially in a rapidly developing community that already seems on edge.

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 small town of Neapolis is being torn apart by a devastating rape trial. The town's golden boy, a swimmer destined for Olympic greatness, has been accused of raping a high school student, the beloved granddaughter of the police chief. Under pressure to make Season Three of her true-crime podcast a success, Rachel throws herself into interviewing and investigating - but the mysterious letters keep showing up in unexpected places. Someone is following her, and she won't stop until Rachel finds out what happened to her sister 25 years ago.

Someone has been plotting to bring down the Spencers ever since Kensy and Max were thrust into the secret world of Pharos, but they've always managed to stay one step ahead of their attackers...until now. As the twins' inner circle - and Pharos's top agents - start going missing, it quickly becomes clear that someone is staging a coup. Soon Kensy and Max are on their own, racing to get to the bottom of the terrible situation before the organisation completely falls apart. And before their family is gone forever.

From the moment Lucy met Diana, she was kept at arm's length. Diana is exquisitely polite, but Lucy knows, even after marrying Oliver, that they'll never have the closeness she'd been hoping for. But who could fault Diana? She was a pillar of the community, an advocate for social justice, the matriarch of a loving family. Lucy had wanted so much to please her new mother-in-law.That was 10 years ago. Now, Diana has been found dead, leaving a suicide note. But the autopsy reveals evidence of suffocation. And everyone in the family is hiding something....

For Gabriel Allon and his wife Chiara, it was supposed to be the start of a romantic weekend in London. But nothing is ever that simple when you're an off-duty spy and assassin. A pair of bombings in Paris and Copenhagen has put him on edge and when Gabriel notices a man exhibiting several traits common to suicide bombers, he follows him into the Covent Garden throng. He's determined to prevent the carnage he fears is about to take place, but before Gabriel can draw his sidearm, he is knocked to the pavement by two plain-clothes police officers.

Christmas is almost here, and Alice-Miranda and her closest friends are celebrating early at Highton Hall. But it's not all gingerbread, parties and present shopping. There are mysteries to be solved! Why are Christmas decorations disappearing and local stores empty of festive treats? What long-kept family secret does Alice-Miranda discover? More importantly, what will she do about it?

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....

Burnt-out from policework, Detective Sergeant George Manolis flies from Australia to Greece for a holiday. Recently divorced and mourning the death of his father, who emigrated from the turbulent Prespes region which straddles the borders of Greece, Albania and North Macedonia, Manolis hopes to reconnect with his roots and heritage. On arrival, Manolis learns of the disappearance of an 'invisible'—a local man who lives without a scrap of paperwork. The police and some locals believe the man's disappearance was pre-planned, while others suspect foul play.

Henry "Hal" Courtney has always lived at sea. He watched his own father executed during the Anglo-Dutch naval war, and spent his entire young adulthood avenging his father's death. Now a truce has been made between the warring countries and Hal is captain of his own ship - the Golden Bough. From the slave markets of Zanzibar to the pirate-riddled waters of the Indian Ocean, Hal leads his crew in and out of the waves of danger. But he soon realizes that just because the war is over, does not mean the battle is won, and the more a man achieves, the more he has to lose.

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 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?

Professor Denise 'Doc' Rado is South Africa's expert on pangolins, busting poachers and freeing the endangered anteaters in elaborate undercover stings. After a risky operation backfires, Doc's life is shattered, but she still has to lead an eclectic group of donors on a wildlife tour of southern Africa. But there's a target on her back.

In war-torn Syria, a massacre survivor is pulled from beneath a pile of bodies. She is given one instruction: 'find Jed Walker'. Walker is ex-CIA - a man who thought he was long out of the game. Discovering a terror outfit is running people-smuggling from the Middle East and into the United States, he is drawn back in to fight their evil trade. At first Walker thinks these human traffickers are driven purely by profit and greed. But it is much worse than that - and it has ties to the highest levels of power.