Keep track of the latest mystery and crime novel releases from your favourite best-selling authors and discover new and emerging authors.
Listed below are the new Australian crime fiction novels that were released in 2021.
Wherever possible the exact release date is included with the publisher details. We have also included the synopsis that was supplied by the publisher and have included the sub-genre(s) we believe the book sits under.
November 2021
The Way It Is Now by Garry Disher
Publisher: Text Publishing
Pub Date: 2 November 2021
Sub-Genre: Mystery
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Twenty years ago Charlie Deravin’s mother went missing near the family beach shack—believed murdered; body never found. His father has lived under a cloud of suspicion ever since.
Now Charlie’s back living in the shack in Menlo Beach, on disciplinary leave from his job with the police sex-crimes unit, and permanent leave from his marriage. After two decades worrying away at the mystery of his mother’s disappearance, he’s run out of leads.
Then the skeletal remains of two people are found in the excavation of a new building site—and the past comes crashing in on Charlie.
The Way It Is Now is the enthralling new novel from Garry Disher, one of Australia’s most loved and celebrated crime writers.
Deception Creek by Fleur McDonald
Publisher: Allen & Unwin Australia
Pub Date: 1 November 2021
Sub-Genre: Romantic Suspense
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Emma Cameron, a recently divorced farmer and a local in Barker, runs Deception Creek, the farm that three generations of her family have owned before her. Every day Emma pushes herself hard on the land, hoping to make ten-year-old memories of a terrible car accident disappear. And now there are more recent nightmares of an ex-husband who refuses to understand how much the farm means to Emma.
When Joel Hammond is released from jail and heads home to Barker, Detective Dave Burrows and Senior Constable Jack Higgins are on high alert. Joel has a long and sorry history with many of the townsfolk and they are not keen to see him home to stay.
Not all of the Barker locals want to see Joel run out of town, though. Some even harbour doubts about Joel’s conviction. The town finds itself split down the middle, families pitted against each other with devastating outcomes.
October 2021
The Last Woman In the World by Inga Simpson
Publisher: Hachette Australia
Pub Date: 27 October 2021
Sub-Genre: Thriller
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AFTER THE FIRES. AFTER THE VIRUS. THEY CAME. A remarkable literary novel from the multi-award-nominated Australian writer
It’s night, and the walls of Rachel’s home creak as they settle into the cover of darkness. Fear has led her to a reclusive life on the land, her only occasional contact with her sister.
A hammering on the door. There stands a mother, Hannah, with a sick baby. They are running for their lives from a mysterious death sweeping the Australian countryside.
Now Rachel must face her worst fears: should she take up the fight to help these strangers survive in a society she has rejected for so long?
The Lost Boy by Rachel Amphlett
Publisher: Saxon Publishing
Pub Date: 11 October 2021
Sub-Genre: Mystery
Run. Don’t look back.
When a young teenager is stabbed to death at a busy fairground, Detective Mark Turpin is assigned the task of finding the boy’s killer.
But this was no random murder.
Mark knows the victim, and the man who ordered his death.
As he sifts through the young victim’s final days, he uncovers a powerful crime syndicate that will do anything to protect its interests.
Then tragedy strikes, and suddenly Mark isn’t just trying to solve a murder – he’s fighting for his own survival.
The River Mouth by Karen Herbert
Publisher: Fremantle Press
Pub Date: 1 October 2021
Sub-Genre: Rural Crime
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Fifteen-year-old Darren Davies is found facedown in the Weymouth River with a gunshot wound to his chest. The killer is never found. Ten years later, his mother receives a visit from the local police.
Sandra’s best friend has been found dead on a remote Pilbara road.
And Barbara’s DNA matches the DNA found under Darren’s fingernails. When the investigation into her son’s murder is reopened, Sandra begins to question what she knew about her best friend.
As she digs, she discovers that there are many secrets in her small town, and that her murdered son had secrets too.
Masala and Murder by Patrick Lyons
Publisher: Niyogi Books
Pub Date: 1 October 2021
Sub-Genre: Private Investigator
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Times are tough for Samson Ryder, a Melbourne-based, Anglo-Indian private investigator who likes his facts cold and his curries hot.
A secret guilt over the death of his sister has left him guarded and closed, costing him his relationship with his girlfriend, his parents and his faith.
When a wealthy Indian industrialist engages him to investigate how his daughter, a rising Bollywood starlet, died on a location shooting in Australia, Samson treats it as easy money. After all, the police had ruled out foul play. He soon comes to realise that this is also his opportunity for redemption, to help a family find the answers to their grief, the answers he couldn’t give to his own parents.
To uncover the truth, Samson goes back to the city of his birth, Mumbai and teams up with Mabel, his interpreter, Godmother and second-best cook in the world. Together, they prise off the glittering mask of Bollywood and unveil an industry where friendships are fickle, affairs are currency, black magic and curses are rampant and hidden dangers lurk all around. Will Sam uncover the truth or will he be the next victim?
September 2021
Treasure & Dirt by Chris Hammer
Publisher: Allen & Unwin
Pub Date: 28 September 2021
Sub-Genre: Rural Noir
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In the desolate outback town of Finnigans Gap, police struggle to maintain law and order. Thieves pillage opal mines, religious fanatics recruit vulnerable young people and billionaires do as they please.
Then an opal miner is found crucified and left to rot down his mine. Nothing about the miner’s death is straightforward, not even who found the body. Sydney homicide detective Ivan Lucic is sent to investigate, assisted by inexperienced young investigator Nell Buchanan.
But Finnigans Gap has already ended one police career and damaged others, and soon both officers face damning allegations and internal investigations. Have Ivan and Nell been set up and, if so, by whom?
As time runs out, their only chance at redemption is to find the killer. But the more secrets they uncover, the more harrowing the mystery becomes, as events from years ago take on a startling new significance.
For in Finnigans Gap, opals, bodies and secrets don’t stay buried forever.
The Silent Town by Anni Taylor
Publisher: Bookish Coast
Pub Date: 14 September 2021
Sub-Genre: Thriller
Series: 3rd book in the Tallman’s Valley Detectives series
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Senior Detective Kate Wakeland senses dark undercurrents in her beloved small town, Tallman’s Valley.
She’s glimpsed a silent town lying beneath the valley – a place where the streets and landcapes are the same but where daylight never reaches. But as Kate begins to investigate the silent town, a shocking multiple shooting occurs on the mountain that bookends the valley – Witness Mountain.
Kate is forced to suspend all else and focus on the case at hand. How did a frail, elderly man manage to shoot his family? Did he have the help of his grandson – a teenage boy who can’t account for his whereabouts that morning?
The height of a devastating fire season hinders Kate at every turn. Through the smoky veil hanging in the valley, Kate begins to suspect a connection between the Witness Mountain shootings and the silent town.
But the dangers are far greater than Kate ever imagined. There are people who will kill to conceal what they know and what they’ve done.
The Curlew’s Eye by Karen Manton
Publisher: Allen & Unwin
Pub Date: 1 September 2021
Sub-Genre: Mystery
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‘It struck her that in all these years, every highway and meandering track they’d taken together had been heading towards this destination. A shack perched halfway up a hill in an other-world of bizarre shadow plants and dark sentinel trees . . . Every road had been leading here, to this place.’
Greta’s partner Joel grew up with five brothers and a sister in a feisty household on an isolated NT property. But he doesn’t talk about those days – not the deaths of his sister and mother, nor the origin of the scars that snake around his body.
Now, many years later, he returns with Greta and their three young boys to prepare the place for sale. The boys are quick to settle in, and Joel seems preoccupied with work, but Greta has a growing sense of unease, struggling in the build-up’s oppressive heat and living in the shadow of the old, burned-out family home. She knows she’s a stranger in this uncanny place, with its eerie and alluring landscape, hostile neighbour, and a toxic dam whose clear waters belie its poison. And then there’s the mysterious girl living rough whom Greta tries to befriend.
Determined to make sense of it all, Greta is drawn into Joel’s unspoken past and confronted by her own. Before long the curlew’s haunting cry will call her to face the secrets she and Joel can no longer outrun.
August 2021
The Last Guests by J.P. Pomare
Publisher: Mulholland Books
Pub Date: 31 August 2021
Sub-Genre: Suspense
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A wife finds herself racing for answers when the decision to rent out her family vacation home takes a deadly turn in this “twisty thriller” perfect for fans of Megan Miranda (Megan Goldin, author of The Escape Room).
Ever have the feeling you’re being watched?
Newlyweds Lina and Cain don’t make it out to their property on gorgeous Lake Tarawera as often as they’d like, so when Cain suggests they rent the house out to vacationers, Lina reluctantly agrees. While the home has been in her family for generations, they could use the extra money. And at first, Lina is amazed at how quickly guests line up, and at how much they’re willing to pay.
But both Lina and Cain have been keeping secrets, secrets that won’t be put off by fresh paint or a new alarm system. And someone has been watching them—their mundane tasks, their intimate moments. When a visit takes a deadly turn, Lina realizes someone out there knows something they shouldn’t…and that welcoming strangers into your home is playing a dangerous game.
The Final Cut by Robert Jeffreys
Publisher: Allen & Unwin
Pub Date: 31 August 2021
Sub-Genre: Police Procedural, Thriller
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Back after suspension, Detective Sergeant Robert Cardilini just wants to get on with the job. But his bosses have other ideas and partner him with an eager, young detective named Lorraine Spencer. To make matters worse, the pair are tasked with solving domestic violence cases. Cardilini thinks it’s a waste of time: without the support of the courts, the police are hamstrung. Spencer knows better.
When they find a young woman bleeding and tied to a chair in a suburban kitchen, they chalk it up as another hopeless case. But as they start investigating, they realise the woman is a willing participant in a sinister game of exploitation run by the highest echelons of business and government.
Desperate to unravel the mystery and shake up the system, Spencer goes out on a limb. But will her partner support her, or will she be thrown to the wolves?
Just Murdered by Katherine Kovacic
Publisher: Allen & Unwin
Pub Date: 3 August 2021
Sub-Genre: Crime, Mystery
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Peregrine Fisher is unexpectedly summoned to a meeting of the Adventuresses’ Club of the Antipodes, where she learns some incredible news.
When Adventuress Florence Astor is accused of murder, Peregrine jumps at the chance to help on the case. Detective James Steed, initially dismissive, quickly finds Peregrine’s flair for investigating and headstrong nature leave him little choice.
A second shocking death occurs and Detective Steed’s boss, Inspector Sparrow, demands the case be brought to a close with suspicious speed.
With Sparrow issuing threats, time is running out for Peregrine. It seems she’s set herself an impossible task, but then, as Detective Steed says, ‘never underestimate a woman named Fisher’.
Till Daph Do Us Part by Phillipa Nefri Clark
Publisher: Self-Published
Pub Date: 30 August 2021
Sub-Genre: Cozy, Mystery
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Daphne had a peculiar feeling in her gut from the moment she arrived at the Brooker residence, and it wasn’t from her hurried lunch.
Daphne Jones adores her new career as a travelling celebrant, visiting a different small town every week to marry happy couples or help with sad goodbyes.
But it isn’t supposed to be both at the same time!
When a member of a bridal party ends up face down in a swimming pool, Daphne embraces her inner sleuth, believing this death was no accident.
Amid old family feuds, resentful relatives, and missing funds, there are plenty of suspects, and none of them appreciates Daphne snooping in their business. One wants her out of town, one wants her reputation destroyed, but with a heart of gold and a way with words, this celebrant sleuth is not giving up. Unless the killer finds her first…
Daphne and John appeared in four of the River’s End series. It is not necessary to read them first, but if you’d like to know more about this gorgeous golden aged couple then take a look. First is The Stationmaster’s Cottage.
July 2021
The Enemy Within by Tim Ayliffe
Publisher: Simon & Schuster
Pub Date: 28 July 2021
Sub-Genre: Thriller
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He heard a voice, someone calling out in the distance, followed by a loud fluttering of birds. Bailey looked up just in time to see a body falling from the sky …
Investigative journalist John Bailey is doing his best to turn his life around after losing the woman he loved. He has a new job. He’s given up the drink. He even has a dog.
But then Federal Police raid his home with a warrant granting them unprecedented powers to take anything they want, including all his electronic devices and passwords. When Bailey protests, they threaten to put him in a prison cell.
Someone wants to stop Bailey doing what he does best – exposing the truth. He has been investigating the rise of a global white supremacist group and suspects that a notorious neo-Nazi in the United States has been directing deadly racist attacks on Sydney’s streets.
When the body of one of his key sources washes up on a nearby beach, it’s clear Bailey and anyone helping him have become targets. Bailey reaches out to a ruthless old friend – CIA veteran, Ronnie Johnson – to lure the enemy from the shadows.
An enemy who thought they were untouchable. Until now …
May 2021
The Girl Remains by Katherine Firkin
Publisher: Random House Australia
Pub Date: 4 May 2021
Sub-Genre: Thriller
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On the evening of September 22, 1998, three teenage girls venture out for a night of mischief in the coastal town of Blairgowrie. But only two return . . .
For over twenty years the disappearance of fifteen-year-old Cecilia May remains a baffling cold case – until human bones are discovered on an isolated beach.
Now it’s up to Detective Emmett Corban and his team to dig up decades of trauma, and find the missing piece of an investigation that’s as complex as it is tragic.
Does the answer lie with the only suspect, a registered sex offender who confessed, then immediately provided a rock-solid alibi? Or with the two teen survivors – neither of whom can keep their story straight?
But the police aren’t the only ones hunting for the truth: someone else has arrived in the seaside town. And she’s prepared to do whatever it takes to find her own version of justice…
I Shot the Devil by Ruth McIver
Publisher: Hachette
Pub Date: 25 May 2021
Sub-Genre: Suspense
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I used to think that I’d escaped Southport . . .
Now I realised, Southport had been coming for me all this time.
Erin Sloane was sixteen when high school senior Andre Villiers was murdered by his friends. They were her friends, too, led by the intense, charismatic Ricky Hell. Five people went into West Cypress Woods the night Andre was murdered. Only three came out.
Ativan, alcohol and distance had dimmed Erin’s memories of that time. But nearly twenty years later, an ageing father will bring her home. Now a journalist, she is asked to write a story about the Southport Three and the thrill-kill murder that electrified the country. Erin’s investigation propels her closer and closer to a terrifying truth. And closer and closer to danger.
Still by Matt Nable
Publisher: Hachette
Pub Date: 26 May 2021
Sub-Genre: Humorous
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Darwin, Summer, 1963.
The humidity sat heavy and thick over the town as Senior Constable Ned Potter looked down at a body that had been dragged from the shallow marshland. He didn’t need a coroner to tell him this was a bad death. He didn’t know then that this was only the first. Or that he was about to risk everything looking for answers.
Late one night, Charlotte Clark drove the long way home, thinking about how stuck she felt, a 23-year-old housewife, married to a cowboy who wasn’t who she thought he was. The days ahead felt suffocating, living in a town where she was supposed to keep herself nice and wait for her husband to get home from the pub. Charlotte stopped the car, stepped out to breathe in the night air and looked out over the water to the tangled mangroves. She never heard a sound before the hand was around her mouth.
Both Charlotte and Ned are about to learn that the world they live in is full of secrets and that it takes courage to fight for what is right. But there are people who will do anything to protect themselves and sometimes courage is not enough to keep you safe.
April 2021
The Ripping Tree by Nikki Gemmell
Publisher: HarperCollins
Pub Date: 7 April 2021
Sub-Genre: Historical Mystery
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Early 1800s. Thomasina Trelora is on her way to the colonies. Her fate: to be married to a clergyman she’s never met. As the Australian coastline comes into view a storm wrecks the ship and leaves her lying on the rocks, near death. She’s saved by an Aboriginal man who carries her to the door of a grand European house, Willowbrae.
Tom is now free to be whoever she wants to be and a whole new life opens up to her. But as she’s drawn deeper into the intriguing life of this grand estate, she discovers that things aren’t quite as they seem. She stumbles across a horrifying secret at the heart of this world of colonial decorum – and realises she may have exchanged one kind of prison for another.
March 2021
Other People’s Houses by Kelli Hawkins
Publisher: HarperCollins
Pub Date: 3 March 2021
Sub-Genre: Suspense
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Kate Webb still grieves for her young son, ten years after his loss. She spends her weekends hungover, attending open houses on Sydney’s wealthy north shore and imagining the lives of the people who live there.
Then Kate visits the Harding house – the perfect house with, it seems, the perfect family. A photograph captures a kind-looking man, a beautiful woman she once knew from university days, and a boy – a boy that for one heartbreaking moment she believes is her own son.
When her curiosity turns to obsession, she uncovers the cracks that lie beneath a glossy facade of perfection, sordid truths she could never have imagined.
But is it her imagination? As events start to spiral dangerously out of control, could the real threat come from Kate herself?
Hidden Valley by Annie Seaton
Publisher: ASA
Pub Date: 5 March 2021
Sub-Genre: Romantic Suspense
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Happily working on her family’s macadamia farm in the rolling hills of northern New South Wales, Dee Peters receives an enigmatic letter hinting of family secrets, and the prospect of her inheriting a cattle station in the Northern Territory outback. Torn in many directions: the request that she meet with a solicitor in Darwin, the evasive behaviour of her parents and the opposition of family friend and her-almost-fiancé, Rodney Andrews, Dee’s contented life is suddenly thrown into turmoil.
The last thing she expects is to inherit a sprawling cattle station in the rugged outback, but she travels to the Territory to find the truth of the inheritance. Intrigued by the vague hints of the elderly solicitor, Dee decides to stay on the station for six months while she attempts to make sense of the past.
Ryan Carey has managed Wilderness Springs cattle station since his father died suddenly. Devastated when he discovers the property has not been bequeathed to him, the last thing Ryan expects is the arrival of a woman, and one who is keen to take over the running of the property. With reluctance, he agrees to work with Dee, but as she tries to make sense of why the property was left to her, a chilling secret from the past will shock them both.
As Dee and Ryan attempt to uncover the secrets of Wilderness Springs, it soon becomes very clear that someone will do anything to stop them discovering the truth.
Set in the harsh countryside west of Kakadu National Park, this is a thrilling mystery about hidden family secrets and finding love in the harsh Australian outback.
The Chase by Candice Fox
Publisher: Bantam Australia
Pub Date: 30 March 2021
Sub-Genre: Thriller
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Are you listening, Warden?’
‘What do you want?’
‘I want you to let them out.’
‘Which inmates are we talking about?’
‘All of them.’
When more than 600 of the world’s most violent human beings pour out from Pronghorn Correctional Facility into the Nevada Desert, the biggest manhunt in US history begins.
But for John Kradle, this is his one chance to prove his innocence, five years after the murder of his wife and child.
He just needs to stay one step ahead of the teams of law enforcement officers he knows will be chasing down the escapees.
Death row supervisor turned fugitive-hunter Celine Osbourne is single-minded in her mission to catch Kradle. She has very personal reasons for hating him – and she knows exactly where he’s heading . . .
February 2021
The Second Son by Loraine Peck
Publisher: Text Publishing
Pub Date: 2 February 2021
Sub-Genre: Suspense
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Duty always has a price.
When Ivan Novak is shot dead putting out his garbage bins in Sydney’s west, his family wants revenge, especially his father Milan, a notorious crime boss. It’s a job for the second son, Ivan’s younger brother Johnny.
But Johnny loves his wife Amy and their son Sasha. And she’s about to deliver her ultimatum: either the three of them escape this wave of killing or she’ll leave, taking Sasha.
Torn between loyalty to his family and love for his wife, Johnny plans the heist of a lifetime and takes a huge risk. Is he prepared to pay the price? And what choice will Amy make?
The Second Son is a brilliant action-packed crime debut that creates a world where honour is everything, violence is its own language, and love means breaking all the rules.
The Imitator by Rebecca Starford
Publisher: Allen & Unwin
Pub Date: 2 February 2021
Sub-Genre: Espionage, Suspense
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Out of place at boarding school, scholarship girl Evelyn Varley realises that the only way for her to fit in is to be like everyone else. She hides her true self and what she really thinks behind the manners and attitudes of those around her. By the time she graduates from Oxford University in 1939, ambitious and brilliant Evelyn has perfected her performance.
War is looming. Evelyn soon finds herself recruited to MI5, and the elite counterintelligence department of Bennett White, the enigmatic spy-runner. Recognising Evelyn’s mercurial potential, White schools her in observation and subterfuge and assigns her the dangerous task of infiltrating an underground group of Nazi sympathisers working to form an alliance with Germany.
But befriending people to betray them isn’t easy, no matter how dark their intent. Evelyn is drawn deeper into a duplicity of her own making, where truth and lies intertwine, and her increasing distrust of everyone, including herself, begins to test her better judgement. When a close friend becomes dangerously ensnared in her mission, Evelyn’s loyalty is pushed to breaking point, forcing her to make an impossible decision.
Crackenback by Lee Christine
Publisher:Allen & Unwin
Pub Date: 2 February 2021
Sub-Genre: Police Procedural
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Detective Sergeant Pierce Ryder of the Sydney Homicide Squad is on the hunt for notorious fugitive Gavin Hutton.
After months of dead-ends, the breakthrough Ryder has been hoping for leads him back to the New South Wales Snowy Mountains on the trail of the suspected killer.
Meanwhile, when an injured man bursts into the remote Thredbo lodge managed by Eva Bell, her first instinct is to protect her daughter, Poppy. The terrifying arrival of Jack Walker turns Eva’s world upside down as the consequences of Jack’s presence become clear.
With a killer on the loose, Jack Walker and Ryder are tangled in the same treacherous web – spun across the perilously beautiful Crackenback Range.
The Silent Listener by Lyn Yeowart
Publisher: Viking
Pub Date: 2 February 2021
Sub-Genre: Suspense
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Propelling the reader back and forth between the 1940s, 1960s and 1980s, The Silent Listener is an unforgettable literary suspense novel set in the dark, gothic heart of rural Australia.
In the cold, wet summer of 1960, 11-year-old Joy Henderson lives in constant fear of her father. She tries to make him happy but, as he keeps reminding her, she is nothing but a filthy sinner destined for Hell . . .Yet, decades later, she returns to the family’s farm to nurse him on his death bed. To her surprise, her ‘perfect’ sister Ruth is also there, whispering dark words, urging revenge.
Then the day after their father finally confesses to a despicable crime, Joy finds him dead – with a belt pulled tight around his neck . . .
For Senior Constable Alex Shepherd, investigating George’s murder revives memories of an unsolved case still haunting him since that strange summer of 1960: the disappearance of nine-year-old Wendy Boscombe.
As seemingly impossible facts surface about the Hendersons – from the past and the present – Shepherd suspects that Joy is pulling him into an intricate web of lies and that Wendy’s disappearance is the key to the bizarre truth.
The Reach by B. Michael Radburn
Publisher: Pantera Press
Pub Date: 2 February 2021
Sub-Genre: Rural Thriller
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In secluded Devlins Reach, on the shores of the Hawkesbury River, three bodies are unearthed in an excavation site. When a wilderness expert, Park Ranger Taylor Bridges, is called in to assist local police, he soon discovers the town has an unsettling history – one to match Taylor’s own haunted past.
But the quiet location and picturesque beauty of The Reach are hiding something darker than Taylor could have anticipated. Within the town’s tight-knit community of loggers, store owners and tight-lipped locals, someone is targeting the residents one by one.
As a torrential storm surges ever closer, and the river swells at the levee walls, The Reach goes into lockdown. With no way in or out, Taylor finds himself in a race against the power of nature to find a desperate killer before the whole town goes under.
The Spiral by Iain Ryan
Publisher: Echo Publishing
Pub Date: 2 February 2021
Sub-Genre: Thriller / Fantasy
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Erma Bridges’ life is far from perfect, but entirely ordinary. So when she is shot twice in a targetted attack by a colleague, her quiet existence is shattered in an instant.
With her would-be murderer dead, no one can give Erma the answers she needs to move on from her trauma. Why her? Why now?
So begins Erma’s quest for the truth – and a dangerous, spiralling journey into the heart of darkness.
With all the inventiveness of The Seven Deaths of Evelyn Hardcastle and the raw brutality of Mulholland Drive, THE SPIRAL is a unique crime thriller with killer twists – and 2020’s most jaw-dropping ending.
January 2021
Shelter by Catherine Jinks
Publisher: Text Publishing
Pub Date: 5 January 2021
Sub-Genre: Suspense
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Meg lives alone: a little place in the bush outside town. A perfect place to hide. That’s one of the reasons she offers to shelter Nerine, who’s escaping a violent ex. The other is that Meg knows what it’s like to live with an abusive partner.
Nerine is jumpy and her two little girls are frightened. It tells Meg all she needs to know where they’ve come from, and she’s not all that surprised when Nerine asks her to get hold of a gun. But she knows it’s unnecessary. They’re safe now.
Then she starts to wonder about some little things. A disturbed flyscreen. A tune playing on her windchimes. Has Nerine’s ex tracked them down? Has Meg’s husband turned up to torment her some more?
By the time she finds out, it’ll be too late to do anything but run for her life.
Beware of Dogs by Elizabeth Flann
Publisher: HarperCollins
Pub Date: 6 January 2021
Sub-Genre: Thriller
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She’s isolated. Trapped. Hunted. An almost unbearably tense Australian survival thriller.
Not much daylight left now.
So begins the field diary of Alix Verhoeven, whose impulsive acceptance of an offer to spend Easter on a remote island has turned into a terrifying ordeal. Hiding in a tiny cave, she carefully rations out her meagre supplies, while desperately trying to figure out how to escape the men hunting her. She is determined not to be a victim.
What do they want with her? She knows it’s nothing good – she overheard enough on that first night to flee. But now she’s got little food or water, no way of calling for help, and only her skills as an exploration geologist and memories of Atkinson’s Bushcraft Guide to survive.
By day she is disciplined and lives by strict plans, but at night she finds herself haunted by questions about her life that she has never wanted to face.
And her time is running out.
Heiress on Fire by Kellie McCourt
Publisher: Harlequin
Pub Date: 6 January 2021
Sub-Genre: Humorous
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After accidentally blowing up her husband, can Indigo get back on her four-inch heels? In this madcap debut, One for the Money meets Crazy Rich Asians with a little Miss Fisher’s Murder Mysteries thrown in.
The marriage of Aussie billion-heiress Indigo-Daisy-Violet-Amber Hasluck-Royce-Jones-Bombberg to conscientious reconstructive surgeon Dr Richard Bombberg has come to a spectacular end. In the middle of a cocktail party, Indigo set him and a mysterious redhead on fire. And then blew them and her penthouse up. All terrible accidents.
When detectives discover explosive device remains in the charred penthouse, they’re gunning for Indigo. Unless she can remain upright, stuff her dignity into her Chanel clutch and uncover the mystery redhead’s identity, she’s going to jail.
To help Indigo, her semi-retired, semi-Buddhist, supermodel mother hires Esmerelda, a recent graduate of the model mentor prison program, as Indigo’s personal assistant. Indigo and Esmerelda traverse Sydney’s upper-class underbelly picking locks, outsmarting bankers and leprechauns, beating up feared gangsters, breaking into hospitals, setting a cathedral on fire (another terrible accident), bribing a giant fireman and some other stuff.
How hard can all this be for an heiress and a felon?
Dead Letters by Michael Brissenden
Publisher: Hachette Australia
Pub Date: 27 January 2021
Sub-Genre: Thriller
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A dead politician. A decades-old unsolved murder. A hornet’s nest is about to be stirred.
Counter terrorism expert Sid Allen knows nothing good ever comes from a phone call at 5 am. Politician Dan LeRoi, Chairman of the Joint Committee on Intelligence and Security, has been shot. Four bullets to the head. The crime scene is chaotic. Homicide. Counter Terrorism. Media. And for Sid, hunting the killer is going to get complicated.
Journalist Zephyr Wilde is complicated. She’s tenacious and she’s got Sid’s number. Sid knows the gossip: how Zephyr’s mother was murdered when Zephyr was a kid. He doesn’t know that Zephyr is still getting letters from her long-dead mother. But when he learns that Dan LeRoi was helping Zephyr look into her mother’s death, he realises that lines are going to be crossed. A cop should not be talking to a journalist.
As they both ask too many questions, Sid and Zephyr stir up a hornet’s nest of corruption. Knowing who to trust is going to mean the difference between solving a crime and being a victim. The question is, which side will they end up on.