Australian Mystery

For more than 150 years, a grand house known as Alden Castle has stood proudly in the rolling hills of California's wine country, home to a family weighed down by secrets and debt. When the castle is sold, billionaire developers move in, only to discover one skeleton after another—including a fresh corpse—rotting in the old family cemetery. As three generations of the well-respected Alden-Stowe family come under scrutiny, police unearth a twisted web of rivalries, alliances, deceit, and treachery. Who lied? Who will survive? Who, amid all the horror and betrayal, is the lucky one?

When girl Detective Friday Barnes solves a bank robbery she uses the reward money to send herself to the most exclusive boarding school in the country, Highcrest Academy. On arrival, Friday is shocked to discover the respectable school is actually a hotbed of crime. She's soon investigating everything from disappearing homework to the Yeti running around the school swamp. That’s when she’s not dealing with her own problem - Ian Wainscott, the handsomest boy in school, who inexplicably hates Friday and loves nasty pranks.

Police corruption, an investigation that ends in tragedy and the mystery of a little girl's silence - three unconnected events that will prove to be linked by one small town. While Detective Cormac Reilly faces enemies at work and trouble in his personal life, Garda Peter Fisher is relocated out of Galway with the threat of prosecution hanging over his head. But even that is not as terrible as having to work for his overbearing father, the local copper for the pretty seaside town of Roundstone.

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.

THE EXPLOSION BROUGHT DOWN THE ENTRANCE TO THE TOMB, BURYING THE CHINESE PEASANTS, BUT KEEPING THE BULLION SAFE UNTIL THE JAPANESE MILITARY CAN RETURN. Hidden inside a long-forgotten ancient mountainside tomb, lies a small part of the 6,000 tons of gold looted by Japanese forces from Nanking during the Second World War. A letter written by Sergeant Ichiro to his father lies forgotten, finally emerging into the light of day seventy-one years later. The strands of destiny weave themselves together, drawing a young Australian and his part-Japanese girlfriend towards the death and wealth which ...

If Hallmark Mysteries joined the Travel Channel describes the Challenge Series. Dave and Katie Parker are a retirement aged couple recovering from difficult circumstances. “I feel like our old life was a boat that went over a waterfall with us inside. Now we’re bobbing up in the pool below, glad to be alive, but without a boat,” says Katie. The Challenge Series of novels follow the Parkers as they solve mysteries, thwart criminals, and find new adventures in colorful locales. Challenge Down Under Dave and Katie Parker’s only son, Jeremy, is getting married in Australia. In spite of ...

FOR ALMOST TEN THOUSAND YEARS THE KHILIOI HAVE LIVED IN THEIR CITY BENEATH THE REMOTE AUSTRALIAN DESERT, UNDISTURBED AND UNKNOWN. But every hundred years or so they have a need. The Khilioi’s energy machine brings a small aircraft within their control, causing it to land in the wilderness above. The Deka, the lords of the Khilioi, take the pilot and his girlfriend to their city, a city they will never be allowed to leave, not even after their purpose has been served – to provide new bloodlines for the Khilioi. Their time is finite. There is a limit to their usefulness. But how can they ...

The monumental statues of Easter Island, both so magisterial and so forlorn, gazing out in their imposing rows over the island’s barren landscape, have been the source of great mystery ever since the island was first discovered by Europeans on Easter Sunday 1722. How could the ancient people who inhabited this tiny speck of land, the most remote in the vast expanse of the Pacific islands, have built such monumental works?

Vera Custodio has never fallen in love, though she has strong feelings for her friend and sometimes lover, Zach Spencer. Long-forgotten memories resurface when Vera discovers Zach’s mother was the woman her father supposedly murdered many years ago. After losing his leg, former triathlete Zach Spencer reevaluates his life—and realizes he’s falling in love with Vera. After she ends their relationship, Zach is determined to prove his love and follows her to Australia in search of the killer. Caught between a web of family secrets and a deranged adversary, Vera and Zach must depend on ...

A gripping whodunit with an unexpected finale. Jack Hamma, Private Detective, meets the rich and beautiful Katrina de Medici Crest. Jack lives to regret that meeting. He wakes up in a police lock up with no recollection of the night before and under arrest for murder. Jack must untangle a web of intrigue full of twists, turns and jumbled evidence to clear his name. 'So Jack Hamma wakes up in jail where the coffee is disgusting and the inmates worse... and you just know he's going to escape but then it's not what we expect . I'm only up to page 38, but there have already been 3 major plot ...

Although the adventurous Brim family are scattered around the world, they have one thing in common. It is the amazing Great Aunt Alicia and her two crazy Dalmatian dogs. But trying to find out what makes her tick is proving impossible. She always seems to be doing something scary somewhere else in the world. The adults just clam up when the kids ask questions! But could a breakthrough be just round the corner?

Katie has only one dream to be the best wilderness scout ever. And to win all ten badges available during their five-day camping trip to Kangaroo Island, and most important to beat all the other girls to the Camp Cup, the once-a-year prize for the best wilderness troop. With her four troop members in tow, she sets up camp in a remote location where a strange giant rock dominates the beach … Was that rock there last year? In the night, something is slaughtering the roos in the night… If the adults find out Katie and her troop will be sent home. The competition for the Camp Cup is heating...

During a broiling heatwave, the inner circle of a high-profile charity attend a critical meeting at White Ash Ridge, a small hotel nestled in the Australian wilderness. As the temperature rises, a body is found lying in the thick bush, bludgeoned to death. One of the four remaining guests is a murderer - but who, and why, is a mystery. Detective Dana Russo knows the national spotlight will be sharply focused on the case. The charity was formed when the founders' teenage son was killed after intervening in a vicious assault - sparking public outrage and a damning verdict on the investigation.

A woman has been found crushed and mutilated inside mining equipment. Jenny is sure the woman’s death was no accident. She investigates and uncovers a link to an extremist Sovereigntist cult who don’t take kindly to strangers. As if fanatics weren’t scary enough—the commune is full of armed men and what appears to be women held captive. Her gut instincts are telling her this cult is trouble, but she needs proof. Jenny’s boss tells her to do what she’s never been good at—be patient, don’t stir up trouble and keep her mouth shut.

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 ...

When 18-year-old Kitty Carlisle's father dies in 1838, her suddenly impoverished mother hopes her beautiful daughter might at least find a good husband. But then, Kitty is compromised by an unscrupulous adventurer, and she is banished in disgrace to the colonies. In the infamous whaling port of Kororareka—known as the Hell-Hole of the Pacific—Kitty falls in love with Rian Farrell, a mysterious sea captain with secrets of his own. Shocking events force her to flee the Bay of Islands for Sydney, but her independent heart leads her into a web.

In Darwin, Australia in the Northwest Territories, crocodiles aren't the only predators lurking about. Inspector Harry Chin, and his partner, Ash Friday, a fierce Aboriginal detective with dark brooding eyes, are sent from Canberra to investigate the murder of an Australian Federal Police Officer, Peter Riggs. Riggs had been working undercover on an international heroin ring that seems to be coming in through the Port of Darwin. The officer had been found in his car dead from an overdose of heroin--the very drug that he had been investigating. Everything seems to be pointing to a heroin ...

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.

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.

Take a devastatingly handsome movie star who would rather be a rancher, add one feisty Australian writer who would rather sit at home with her books, and stir in a cast of wonderful friends who think they know what is best for the star and the writer. It all adds up to a crackling enemies-to-lovers romance that sweeps around the world from Hollywood and Montana to the wilds of the Australian outback. Abby Lane vowed never to return to Hollywood but her flamboyant journalist cousin convinces her to do one interview with the movie star Jackson Baron. From the moment Abby arrives late at the ...