Australian Fiction Mysteries

Detective Alex Reilly thought his transfer to the remote desert town of Coober Pedy would be a quiet assignment—a chance to rebuild his damaged career far from the spotlight. But when Harold Finch, part-owner of the town's vital water supply, is found dead in his underground home, what appears to be a tragic accident quickly reveals itself as something far more sinister. As Reilly investigates, he discovers that Harold's death is connected to a sophisticated conspiracy targeting the community's most precious resource: water. Environmental engineer Daphne Traynor seems helpful at first, ...

Detective Jake Morrison thought his transfer to rural South Australia was career suicide—until he discovers a body in the abandoned shearing shed at Thornfield Station. What appears to be a workplace accident soon reveals itself as cold-blooded murder. Station manager Gareth Sullivan was killed with a wool press handle, his body moved to cover up the crime. As Morrison digs deeper into the isolated sheep station's finances, he uncovers a web of embezzlement, gambling debts, and desperate choices. When Morrison identifies bookkeeper Bronwyn Hayes as his prime suspect, her world comes ...

In 1998, the American Jorgenson family had been on a year-long road trip in Australia. One humid, storming night, the mother - Elsa Jorgenson - vanished in an isolated stretch of Australian everglades. Elsa was never seen again. That night, twelve-year-old Lily Jorgenson was left alone and terrified in the family camper—even her teenage sister Iris is missing. When Iris comes racing back through the rain, she refuses to tell where she’s been. Lily is certain her sister is hiding a dark secret.

When Detective Senior Constable Sarah Chen finds prominent Aboriginal rights lawyer David Namatjira dead at the bottom of Emily Gap, what appears to be a hiking accident quickly reveals itself as calculated murder. David's death coincides with the systematic ransacking of his Legal Aid office, where crucial files documenting mining company corruption have been stolen. His legal challenges cost Northern Territory Minerals millions while protecting sacred Aboriginal sites from illegal exploration, giving corporate executives powerful motives for eliminating their most effective opponent. But ...

Ryan and Sophie are a golden couple in Melbourne, the charming, salt-of-the-earth country boy and the charismatic, gorgeous social butterfly. When Ryan’s father dies, leaving them the family farm, it seems like a chance for Ryan to get back to his roots and for Sophie to embrace the bucolic country life she always dreamed of. But reality proves very different, and years spent struggling against an implacable drought have pushed their marriage – and finances – to the absolute limit.

“The Claremont”, an outdated, run-down apartment building, is thrown into turmoil when its latest and most celebrated resident, Crispin Fairchild, conductor of the Sydney Symphony Orchestra, is found murdered. His eccentric neighbours and members of the orchestra appear saddened by his death but are they? Is one of them his killer? These are questions Detective Chief Inspector Alistair Fitzjohn asks himself when he takes on the case and unearths not only the innermost secrets of those who knew Crispin, but the enigma that surrounds him.

After getting a note demanding his presence, Federal Agent Aaron Falk arrives in his hometown for the first time in decades to attend the funeral of his best friend, Luke. Twenty years ago when Falk was accused of murder, Luke was his alibi. Falk and his father fled under a cloud of suspicion, saved from prosecution only because of Luke’s steadfast claim that the boys had been together at the time of the crime. But now, more than one person knows they didn’t tell the truth back then, and Luke is dead.

Real-estate mogul Martin Cresswell-Smith is the best thing that has ever happened to Ellie. After her daughter’s devastating death, a divorce, and an emotional breakdown, he’s helped her move as far as possible from the grief, the rage, and the monsters of her past. Ellie imagines her new home with Martin in an Australian coastal town will be like living a fairy tale. But behind closed doors is another story - one that ends in Martin’s brutal murder. And Ellie seems almost relieved... Naturally, everyone thinks Mrs. Cresswell-Smith is guilty.

The death of Old Joe, a homeless man on Darlinghurst Road, seemed inevitable—until the autopsy revealed it was murder. Darlinghurst Road, once the beating heart of Sydney's red-light district, is where the past lingers in the shadows. However, the city's Eastern Suburbs are not known for bloodshed. When a second victim, an affluent woman from exclusive Point Piper, is found with her throat cut, the divide between Sydney's elite and its outcasts grows more sinister. Detective Gary Haddock has seen it all in Homicide, but even he is baffled by the lack of connection between the murders. ...

Stacey and Laney are twins—mirror images of each other—and yet they’re as different as the sun and the moon. Stacey works hard at school, determined to get out of their small town. Laney skips school and sneaks out of the house to meet her boyfriend. But when Laney disappears one night, Stacey can’t believe she’s just run off without telling her. As the days pass and Laney doesn’t return, Stacey starts dreaming of her twin. The dreams are dark and terrifying, difficult to understand and hard to shake, but at least they tell Stacey one key thing—Laney is alive.

Lenny Marks is excellent at not having a life. She bikes home from work at exactly 4pm each day, buys the same groceries for the same meals every week, and owns thirty-six copies of The Hobbit (currently arranged by height). The closest thing she has to a friendship is playing Scrabble against an imaginary Monica Gellar while watching Friends reruns. And Lenny Marks is very, very good at not remembering what happened the day her mother and stepfather disappeared when she was still a child. The day a voice in the back of her mind started whispering, You did this.

Two brothers meet at the remote fence line separating their cattle ranches in the lonely outback. In an isolated belt of Western Australia, they are each other’s nearest neighbor, their homes a four-hour drive apart. The third brother lies dead at their feet. Something caused Cam, the middle child who had been in charge of the family homestead, to die alone in the middle of nowhere. So the eldest brother returns with his younger sibling to the family property and those left behind. But the fragile balance of the ranch is threatened.

An enthusiastic crowd gathered at Lyrebird Lodge in the Blue Mountains on that crisp autumn morning, all anxious to acquire one of Florence Fontaine’s much sought after paintings. However, the only art on one visitor’s mind is the art of murder. Detective Chief Inspector Fitzjohn, unwittingly drawn into the case, launches his investigation that reveals a web of past and present jealousy, deceit and revenge, at a time when his own life is unravelling before his eyes. Meanwhile, Claire Reynolds, Florence’s business manager and organiser of the event, finds herself entangled in the ...

"Strap your helmet on, because The Cumal Files is a wild ride you won't soon forget...It is fast-paced and filled with characters that are a joy to spend time with." BestThrillers.com INNOCENCE LOST. LEGACIES DESTROYED. A NATION’S DARKEST SECRET REVEALED… When forty teenage girls disappear from Sydney's streets without a trace the whole city is on edge. Disgruntled police officer, Dan Porter, is one of the few searching and after a brutal murder the killers dare him to hunt them down. Porter is joined by Lionel Roberts, a human-rights lawyer determined to expose government neglect, and ...

When construction workers uncover preserved human remains at Kingfisher Station—a luxury resort development in rural Australia—Detective Maya Thorne is called back to the hometown she fled as a teenager. The discovery is eerily similar to a case she solved months earlier, but this time it's personal: the development borders her childhood home, which she abandoned. The victim is identified as Elaine Mercer, an environmental consultant who disappeared eight years ago while investigating water rights during the region's worst drought in decades. Maya quickly discovers that Elaine had ...

University professor Alex Wearing is found murdered in his study by the Post Graduate Co-coordinator, Vera Trenbath, a nosey interfering busybody. Assigned to the case is Detective Chief Inspector Alistair Fitzjohn. Fitzjohn is a detective from the old guard, whose methodical, painstaking methods are viewed by some as archaic. His relentless pursuit for the killer zeros in on Alex’s brother, James, as a key suspect in his investigation. Compelled to clear himself of suspicion, James starts his own investigation and finds himself immersed in a web of intrigue, ultimately uncovering long ...

We are familiar in our journeys to Europe of visiting places and shrines where startling and mystical things have taken place. Places of pilgrimage such as Padre Pio’s town where that great saint lived out his priestly life with the stigmata. We marvel at the miracles done which are so beyond what we can even imagine. What would happen if, in a little, very ordinary, small country town, a mysterious priest takes up residence in a falling down, decrepit shell of a church? Curiosity would run rife. If the priest, who has no name but , ‘Father’, shuts himself in with a high fence ...

Adelaide Hills, Christmas Eve, 1959. At the end of a scorching hot day, a local deliveryman makes a terrible discovery. A police investigation is called, and the small town of Tambilla becomes embroiled in one of the most shocking and perplexing murder cases in the history of South Australia. Many years later and thousands of miles away, Jess is a journalist in search of a story. Having lived and worked in London for nearly two decades, she now finds herself laid off from her full-time job and struggling to make ends meet. Until a phone call out of nowhere summons her back to Sydney.

It all begins on a flight from Hobart to Sydney. The flight will be smooth. It will land safely. Everyone who gets on the plane will get off the plane. But almost all of them will be changed forever. Because on this ordinary flight, something extraordinary happens. 'A lady', unremarkable until she isn't, predicts how and when many of the passengers are going to die. For some, death is far in the future; for others, it is very close.

Six minutes in the wrong place at the wrong time—that’s all it took to ruin Sydney detective Ted Conkaffey’s life. Accused but not convicted of a brutal abduction, Ted is now a free man—and public enemy number one. Maintaining his innocence, he flees north to keep a low profile amidst the steamy, croc-infested wetlands of Crimson Lake. There, Ted’s lawyer introduces him to eccentric private investigator Amanda Pharrell, herself a convicted murderer.