Australian Thrillers

Who is Audrey Hoedemaker? It's a question her sister Maureen has heard more times than she can count, and she doesn't know what the short answer would be. Little sister, troubled teen, backpacker, musical theatre coach, con artist, childcare worker. Murderer. A tragic, traumatic childhood casts a long shadow on the Hoedemaker sisters. Maureen has worked hard to move beyond the violence of the past and build a good, honest life for herself. Audrey, however, just can't seem to do the same, careening from one state of chaos to another.

It was a bleak November in 2012 when Cari Lea Farver vanished from Omaha, Nebraska. Cari, 37, was a devoted mother, reliable employee, and loyal friend - not the type to shirk responsibilities, abandon her son, and run off on an adventure while her dying father took his last breaths. Yet, the many texts from her phone indicated she had done just that. While Cari's boyfriend, Dave Kroupa, and her supervisor were bewildered by her abrupt disappearance, they accepted the texts at face value. Her mother, Nancy Raney, however, was alarmed and reported Cari missing.

When a simple mix-up leaves their father Joe’s estate to Eden, their long-absent mother, Clare and Aaron decide it’s finally time to track Eden down. But it’s been over thirty years since she left their remote outback mining town, and they’ve never heard from her again. Aaron is dealing with a new marriage that’s currently trapped in immigration limbo, and his teenage daughter Cady is clearly going through a personal crisis of her own.

Photographer Isla Wilson is thrilled she's landed her dream job, but the clients who hired her are getting stranger by the day. It sounded so perfect—a month's assignment at the lush Scottish Highlands property of architect Alban McGregor, and his wife, Jessica. But in the woods, there's a playhouse with a chilling history. Two years ago, the McGregors' daughter Elodie was abducted and then died in that playhouse. The townspeople insist her abductor had to be a stranger in their town. Alban refuses to knock the playhouse down, even keeping a picture of it on his wall.

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 Amazon best selling series, if you are a fan of Outback by Patricia Wolf or The Dry by Jane Harper, check it out! Detective Sergeant Nick Vada thought he had left the past when he moved to the bustling streets of Sydney. But when his sister's wedding brings him back to the sleepy farming town of Milford, he's forced to confront memories he'd rather forget. What should have been a joyful family reunion quickly turns sinister when a body is discovered on the homestead of Warranilla, the largest farm in the region. The local police are out of their depth and Nick finds himself reluctantly ...

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.

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 ...

A collection of four critically acclaimed, gripping short novels that delve into the depths of survival, obsession, and the dark side of human nature.Box of Bones Jim, an American expat teaching English in the Philippines, wakes up after a night out to find himself trapped inside a pitch-black coffin—running out of oxygen and out of time. With only his cell phone and his wits, he must fight panic and exhaustion in a desperate race against death.Six Bullets Thirteen months after a massive asteroid wiped out civilization, survivalist Burt James is still alive—bunkered in his fortified ...

When Detective Maya Thorne is summoned back to Warragulla—the rural Australian hometown she swore never to revisit—she expects a routine investigation. Skeletal remains have been discovered in a drought-exposed creek bed at Billabong Station, likely from the bushfires that ravaged the region three years ago. But as the parched earth gives up its secrets, Maya finds herself excavating more than just bones. The remains belong to Cameron Lockhart, a local landowner who disappeared during the fires, and someone put a bullet in his head before burying him where the flames would erase the ...

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, ...

A village boy dies alone in the mountains, his broken body lying at the bottom of a steep gorge. Was it the tragic accident that everyone believes? Terry has suspicions. But he’s got his own problems. His writing career is on the rocks. In fact he can’t even see the rocks from where he’s standing. From the best-seller lists to obscurity it’s hit him hard. But the words aren’t there. The Greek-island village is a last shot to rekindle his lost mojo. But it’s not going well. Grilled octopus, raki and the single mum down the corridor hold more interest than his laptop. And what is ...

When 17-year-old Belle Smith is reported missing, the Darfield police are busy helping fight one of the worst bushfires the region has ever faced. Belle seems to have vanished into thin air, and the local police force have no leads. Twenty years later, the case that gripped the nation is resurrected when the smash hit podcast, ‘Into The Flames’ is released, and asks the question: just what happened to Belle Smith? Due to the renewed interest in the cold case, DS Nick Vada is tasked with returning to Darfield to once again look into her disappearance, and soon discovers that nothing here...

An Old Fort in Sydney Harbour – The body of a woman missing for seventeen years. It’s murder, but after so long, can it be solved? Sergeant Natalie Campbell and Inspector Haddock are resolute that it can. But then, there’s the complication of the murdered woman’s father, the bombastic, bullying Bernie Cornell. One of Australia’s richest men, but he’s closing in on death due to old age and ill health. There’s no shortage of intrigue, no shortage of potential murderers. Another gripping thriller, Natalie Campbell and Inspector Haddock at their very best.

A Heavy Metal Concert. An Island in the Harbour. The Lead Singer of One of the Bands is Murdered. Was the murderer the woman he had just made love to or a jealous paramour, or was the motive more obscure? It was an island prison in colonial days, then a shipbuilding facility, and now a venue for concerts and tourists, with some camping overnight and others wandering around the engineering workshops or the ruins of the prison. Death wasn't uncommon in its earlier, more violent days, but not in the present, and not at a concert, but Alan Greenworthy had died. Would others? Another gripping ...

Gray, a disillusioned mixed-race Indigenous lawyer and his wife take a break from their busy city life in Melbourne to visit the homeland of his mother in Nhulunbuy in the Northern Territory for Christmas in 1974. It is a dream holiday that escalates into a terrifying nightmare as the couple become the unwitting target of an unscrupulous racist miner. Set against the devasting onslaught of Cyclone Tracy in the tumultuous times of the early 1970’s in a remote region of Australia, ‘The Nowhere Man’ tells the story of one man’s search to reconnect with his ancestral cultural roots and ...

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. ...

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 ...

In the ancient Singing Gorge, where sound travels in mysterious ways and sacred ceremonies have been performed for millennia, Special Investigator Odysseus "Odie" Kalaris is called to investigate when ethnomusicologist Dr. Simon Parker is found dead at the base of a cliff. What begins as a possible accidental fall evolves into something far more sinister, revealing connections between sacred ceremonial recordings and powerful academic, commercial, and political interests. When Odie discovers Parker's recording equipment is missing and evidence of a struggle at the cliff edge, he must ...

Jack might be the bodyguard but where is the body? Private detective Jack Hamma is hired to protect a beautiful Chinese nurse. He escorts her to the airport, she goes into the ladies room and that's the last he see's of her. Jack goes into overdrive to find her but every move is a false start and every clue is a red herring. A relentless and powerful thriller. Reviews: 'The latest instalment of Jack Hamma and his detective agency is currently my favorite.' 'The pace of the book is fast and this is matched by the pace of the humor.' 'The ending, it had me going oooooooh!!! ' 'It ended with a...