Australian Fiction Mysteries

'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.

Jo Ainsley has been running for a long time. From her childhood in small town England to art school in London to the messy end of a relationship in Sydney, Jo has chosen to run again and again, each time moving further from where her troubles began. This time, her escape will bring her to the remote northwest region of Western Australia, where she must work for 88 days on a farm in order to extend her visa.

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.

State of Fear is a superb blend of edge-of-your-seat suspense and thought provoking commentary on how information is manipulated in the modern world. From the streets of Paris, to the glaciers of Antarctica to the exotic and dangerous Solomon Islands, State of Fear takes the listener on a roller-coaster thrill ride, all the while keeping the brain in high gear.

Ethan Haddock is discovered in his apartment, dead, apparently by his own hand. His professor is taken in for questioning, and rumors swirl that his death is the result of a student-teacher bad romance. The story hits the media, an investigation is opened and the professor is suspended. Marlitt Kaplan has never investigated love affairs. A former detective turned research assistant, she misses the excitement of her old job. When her mother, a colleague of the accused professor, asks for her help, Marlitt finds herself in the impossible position of proving something didn't happen.

Erma Bridges dreams of violence. After years of dedication to academic research, her career is falling apart, all because of a mysterious workplace complaint. Erma suspects Jenny, a vindictive colleague, who has seemingly disappeared. Panicked, overworked and on the verge of a nervous breakdown, Erma sets out to find Jenny. Through her search, she uncovers a dark series of crimes on campus - do they have something to do with Jenny's disappearance?

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.

Robyn Ayres works as the camp caretaker on Finch Island, a former leper colony off the coast of Queensland. Her current clients are a group of ex-military men who run a tough-love program for troubled teens. The latest crop looks like the usual mix of bad boys and sad boys. Then Robyn takes a second look at a kid called Darren. Last time she saw him, his name was Aaron and Robyn was his primary school teacher. And she was somehow at the centre of a vicious small-town custody battle involving his terrifying grandmother.

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.

Natalie, an art student in New York City, is struggling to pay her bills when a friend makes a suggestion: Why not find a sugar daddy - a wealthy, older man who will pay her for dates, and a monthly allowance. All that’s required is to look pretty. Sexual favours are optional. Gabe, a handsome finance attorney, seems like the perfect candidate and within a month they are madly in love. At least, Nat is - Gabe already has a family, who he has no intention of leaving.

Harper Brown is an expert at picking locks, breaking her way out of car boots, and talking her way out of trouble, and she could run a masterclass on escaping relationships—her record for losing a guy is three minutes flat. She’s addicted to true crime podcasts and is the genius behind a micro-column called "How to Not Get Murdered". After having her heart broken helping her ex follow his dreams, Harper has moved to Paris to fulfill hers. But then one night she meets the artist Noah X, and everything she thinks she knows is turned upside down.

Ten suspects. Ten heists. A mystery only Ernest Cunningham can solve. I've spent the last few years solving murders. But a bank heist is a new one, even for me. I've never been a hostage before. The doors are chained shut. No one in or out. Which means that when someone in the bank is murdered, hostages become suspects.

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.

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'...

A young woman is hiding out in a sleepy North Queensland tourist town, trying to stay under the radar, when she stumbles across a dangerous drug cartel. Anyone else might back away shaking their head, pretend they hadn't seen anything, keep quiet, even though people are getting hurt. But Maggie is no ordinary girl. She's got skills, as well as plenty of secrets to keep, burdens to carry - and anger to burn.

December 1974. Abby Campbell and her brother Charlie are driving to their father's farm on a dark country road when they swerve into the path of another car, forcing it into a tree. The pregnant driver is killed instantly. In the heat of the moment, Abby and Charlie make a fateful decision. They flee, hoping heavy rain will erase the fact they were there. They both have too much to lose.

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.

Stefan was just seventeen when he went to prison for the murder of his girlfriend, Belinda, a crime he has no memory of committing. Three years later, he’s released to a world that refuses to let him move on. Belinda’s mother, once Thea’s good friend, galvanises the community to rally against him. Neighbours, employers, even some members of Thea’s own family turn away.

The annual Halloween block party is the pinnacle of the year on idyllic suburban cul-de-sac Ivy Woods Drive. An influential group of neighbourhood mums - known as the Ivy Five - plans the event for months. Except the Ivy Five has been four for a long time. When a new mother moves to town, eager to fit in, the mums see it as an opportunity to make the group whole again. This year's block party should be the best yet…until the women start receiving anonymous messages threatening to expose the quiet neighbourhood's dark past - and the lengths they've gone to hide it.