Australian Mystery

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.

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 ...

When Jenny Williams took a job as the new constable in an outback opal mining town, she thought she’d be hunting down clues to find her missing aunt and cousin. But when a young woman’s body is found at the bottom of a mine shaft, a possible murder forces her personal agenda to take a back seat. Jenny goes head to head with her new commanding officer. He doesn’t want to ruffle feathers in town and rules the case Death By Misadventure. But Jenny is sure the dead woman met with foul play.

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.

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 in the Golden State The Parker family travels in an RV to the Golden State on vacation. After Dave, ...

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.

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.

After the heists gone wrong in Kickback and Paydirt, Wyatt is further down on his luck and deeper in with the Outfit, a network of organised criminals whose attention he's tried hard to avoid. A risky job in a Brisbane bank and the return of a femme fatale add further complications to Wyatt's increasingly desperate situation and force him to decide who he is and who he cares about.

When a mysterious client hires Penn Gwinn, a private investigator based in San Rafael, California, to locate the legendary opal called the Aqualene, Penn thought it would be a quick buck. He had no idea he was about to become involved in a bizarre chase for the Aqualene, called the Eye of God, part of the Australian Aborigine heritage. As this case takes him through Mexico and on to Australia, he attracts many so-called friends and allies. The confrontation with the Quad Lateral Council, an international criminal syndicate, leaves a trail of bodies. Penn deals with phony detectives and ...

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 ...

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.

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.

Friday's Mum, the Nobel Prize winning physicist, has been accused of espionage. The police think she's been selling secrets about the CERN Hadron Super Collider. Friday knows her mother isn't capable of such a thing - this is a woman who can't even operate a dishwasher. She's got to smuggle herself into Switzerland to clear her Mum's name. Fortunately, Melanie is a master of disguise. After an extremely extreme make-over, Friday arrives at CERN and finds axolotls in the water coolers, graffiti in the great hall and most baffling of all - her sister has fallen in love with an engineer!

Under the fierce heat of the Australian outback, the laws of nature serve a rough justice. When a man vanishes deep in the Northern Territory, local police write it off. But his family suspect otherwise—and when the call for help goes out, Ben Hope and Jeff Decker are there to hear it. Ben’s instincts, honed by years of Special Forces missions, soon see the story told by a trail of bullet casings, rumours of a missing map and a lethal cocktail of greed, power and money.

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.

All Hanna Fischer ever wanted to do was to study physics under the great Albert Einstein. But when, as a teenager in 1919, her life is suddenly turned upside-down, she is catapulted into a new and extraordinary life - as a secretary, a scientist, a sister and a spy. From racist gangs in Berlin to gangsters in New York City, Nazis in the 1930s and Hitler's inner circle during the Second World War, Hanna will encounter some of history's greatest minds and most terrible moments, all while desperately trying to stay alive.

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 ...

CeCe D’Aplièse, in her mid-twenties, has never felt she fitted in anywhere. Following the death of her father, the elusive billionaire Pa Salt – so-called by the six daughters he adopted from around the globe – she finds herself at breaking point. Dropping out of art college, CeCe watches as Star, her beloved sister, distances herself to follow her new love, leaving her completely alone. In desperation, CeCe decides to flee England and discover her past; the only clues she has are a black-and-white photograph and the name of a woman pioneer who lived in Australia over one hundred years ago.

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 ...

Kieran Elliott's life changed forever on the day a reckless mistake led to devastating consequences. The guilt that still haunts him resurfaces during a visit with his young family to the small coastal community he once called home. Kieran's parents are struggling in a town where fortunes are forged by the sea. Between them all is his absent brother, Finn. When a body is discovered on the beach, long-held secrets threaten to emerge. A sunken wreck, a missing girl, and questions that have never washed away....