Australian Crime Fiction Novels Coming Soon

It began in every town and city at the same time, in every dark and twisted corner of our world. One third of the earth's citizens were asleep at the time. Their awakening was marked by horror and confusion. Just about everyone else had their routine interrupted as they witnessed the event with eyes wide open. They prayed it was a dream.

In the small, sleepy town of Gattan, population 7448, it happened at eleven o'clock on a Saturday morning. At the local soccer field, only one boy, aged ten years and one week, remained standing as the brothers, sisters and parents of his teammates realised the horror they were witnessing. Their screams split the sky.

One hundred and thirty million died that first day.Every day since, on the morning of a child's ninth birthday, it happens again. No one knows why. The ongoing horror becomes known as Orpheus Nine and bereft parents cruelly labelled Orpheans. Global leaders have no answers as chaos takes hold. Conspiracy theories and violence spread as scientists wrestle with the ongoing toll and anxious citizens and militant Orpheans try to take matters into their own hands.

In Gattan, the chasm between life before and after grows wider for three old friends, now parents. They struggle with waves of grief at the loss of one child, guilt at one child's survival and anger as another child edges closer to their birthday. No matter the cost, each of the friends attempt to fight the unfathomable in their own way. But the reality is, the clock keeps ticking, the world order is crumbling and the gods are watching ...

DS Liz Moorland is hunting her father and at last there is an end in sight. The team at Operation Nobody is focused on finding him and solving a puzzling old double murder, but are the two cases connected?

Former London police officer Rose Campbell has been estranged from her daughter, Lou, for almost a decade. But when Lou disappears from a remote Western Australian beach, and the police suspect her of kidnapping the two young children in her care, Rose is asked to help bring Lou home. The police think Rose's insights will lead them to Lou, but they don't realise that Rose hardly knows her daughter anymore.

This is the final case in DSS Mal Blackwood's illustrious career, and there's a lot riding on it. The missing children are heirs to the Fisher property empire, and while their multimillionaire grandfather is breathing down Blackwood's neck for results, the media storm is intensifying. Faced with a deluge of evidence and accusations, Blackwood doesn't know who he can trust.

Rose arrives in Australia intent on proving her daughter's innocence, but how can she be sure of that when she's no longer part of Lou's life? Meanwhile, as Blackwood begins to expose the Fishers' secrets, the investigation takes a much darker turn. Shadows of the past gather around the Fishers and Rose, and soon it's clear that every hour is critical. What has happened to Lou and the children? And can Rose and Blackwood find them in time?

Lyrebirds are brilliant mimics, so if they mimic a woman screaming in terror and begging for her life, they have witnessed a crime. But how does a young, hung over PHD student and a wet behind the ears new detective, convince anyone that a native bird can be a reliable witness to a murder, especially when there is no body and no missing person? 

And what happens when they turn out to be right?

Lyrebirds were mimics. They didn't create the sounds they made, only repeated what they had heard. Had the bird actually listened to some poor woman begging for her life? Jessica looked around uneasily. The bush that had seemed so benign and beautiful only minutes before now seemed sinister.

Twenty years ago, ornithology student Jessica Weston filmed a lyrebird mimicking the dying screams of a woman in the Barrington Tops National Park. Terrified, she took her recordings to the Maitland police to report a murder. Despite support from newly minted detective, Megan Blaxland, no one was reported missing in the area and no body found, so Jessica's claims were mocked and dismissed.

Twenty years later, a body is unearthed. Exactly where Jessica said it would be. 

Megan Blaxland, now a retired senior sergeant, is persuaded to return and lead the cold case investigation. The first thing she does is contact Jessica Weston, now an Associate Professor at Newcastle University. 

Jessica and Megan both feel that they have let the dead woman down and are determined to find the killer, whatever it takes. But what they don't realise is that they are not only putting themselves in danger, but those close to them . . .

Murder and Mayhem on the waterfront. 
It's time for the Tea Ladies!

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. She takes on the Maltese mafia and becomes involved in a dangerously sticky situation. 

When one of the tea ladies disappears, they face their greatest challenge yet, pushing their detective skills to the limit. It will take more than a glass of Hazel's homemade wine to solve this one.

An abandoned resort seems the perfect place to hide, but is Barren Cape a refuge or a trap?

Former housemates Mac and Erika are homeless. 

Well, Erika is fine, she just has to live with her parents until she can find another rental. Mac's situation is much worse – family isn't an option and she's surfing the couches of her increasingly exasperated friends. 

Driving around one lonely afternoon, Mac discovers Barren Cape. Once destined to be a luxury escape, now it's just wire fence and gray cement.

It's stark, but quiet. There's no harm in staying a little while…

No matter how much or how little you find, you will never, ever own the gold. It will always own you.

After a scandal, investigative reporter Zara Ellison and her partner, policeman Jack Higgins, have moved to Kalgoorlie but they are each struggling with this fresh start. The wild mining town has its own rules, and its inhabitants - drawn by the lure of gold and riches - guard their secrets carefully. 

Zara feels adrift in the swirling red dust of the lawless bush city, without sources or any leads for the hard-hitting stories she's known for. Jack is out of the detective squad and trying to find his feet back in uniform. 

On an isolated stretch of highway, a pair of grey nomads is involved in a devastating accident which leaves more questions than answers. Zara starts digging for her own kind of gold, while Jack's investigation sends him on a parallel path towards a dangerous smuggling ring. 

In the wide open spaces of the outback, some secrets are buried deep.

In April 2006, fifteen-year-old Oliver went hiking to the lookout on Burning Mountain - and vanished without trace.

His schoolfriends – Bob, Bell, Phil and Paul – were the last ones to see him on the trek, yet the teenagers were never able to explain his disappearance.

Almost twenty years later, Detective Rebecca Giles is called to bushland on nearby Mount Wingen. There a skull has been dug up, reviving the mystery that has haunted the Upper Hunter area for years.

Giles is convinced that they have finally found the missing boy, and that his four friends – all now in their mid-thirties – have always known much more than they revealed. In particular, about the argument that caused Oliver to head down the mountain on his own.

But when she discusses the case with her father, retired Superintendent Benjamin Giles, another suspect is thrown into the mix. One that for Giles is uncomfortably close to home . . .

For years the boglands of Northern Europe have given up bodies of the long-deceased. Bodies that are thousands of years old, uncannily preserved. Bodies with strange injuries that suggest ritual torture and human sacrifice.

When a corpse is found in a bog in Galway, Cormac Reilly assumes the find is historical. But closer examination reveals a more recent story. The dead man is Thaddeus Grey, a local secondary school principal who disappeared two years prior.

There's nothing in Grey's past that would explain why he was murdered, or why his body was mutilated in a ritual manner. At first, progress on the case is frustratingly slow and Cormac struggles to keep his mind on the job. His ex-girlfriend, Emma Sweeney, is in trouble, and she's reached out to him for help - Emma's new husband has gone missing in Paris, and the French police are refusing to open an investigation into his disappearance.

Cormac is sure that he has found Grey's killer, and is within hours of an arrest, when another mutilated body is discovered on the other side of the country. Two days later, a third body is found. Press attention is intense. Is there a serial killer at work in Ireland? Has Cormac been on the wrong trail? And if so, can he find the murderer before they strike again?

People go to the isolated Karpathy farm looking for a new life. Is it a commune? Is it a cult? Or something far more dangerous?

Lane Holland's crime-solving career ended the day he went to prison. Yet one unsolved case continues to haunt him: the disappearance of Matilda Carver two decades ago.

Against the odds, Lane finds a lead - a mysterious farm community where Matilda lived briefly, led by the enigmatic Samuel Karpathy. The farm attracts lost souls. People looking for answers. People hiding from their pasts. People who have nowhere else to go.

But some of those who go to the farm seem to vanish without a trace.

To most of Regency high society, forty-two-year-old Lady Augusta Colebrook, or Gus, and her twin sister, Julia, are just unmarried ladies of a certain age - hardly worth a second glance. But the Colebrook twins are far from useless old maids. They are secretly protecting women and children ignored by society and the law.

When Lord Evan - a charming escaped convict who has won Gus's heart - needs to hide his sister and her lover from their vindictive brother, Gus and Julia take the two women into their home. They know what it is like to have a powerful and overbearing brother. But Lord Evan's complicated past puts them all in danger. Gus knows they must clear his name of murder if he is to survive the thieftakers who hunt him. But it is no easy task-the fatal duel was twenty years ago and a key witness is nowhere to be found. 

In a deadly cat-and-mouse game, Gus, Julia, and Lord Evan must dodge their pursuers and investigate Lord Evan's past. They will be thrust into the ugly underworld of Georgian gentlemen's clubs, spies, and ruthless bounty hunters, not to mention the everyday threat of narrow-minded brothers. Will the truth be found in time, or will the dangerous secrets from the past destroy family bonds and rip new love and lives apart?

Something is going on behind closed doors ...
 
Meet the Jansen family:

Since the weekend of the party—the one twenty-two year old Liv can’t remember, the one that left her covered in bruises—she’s been locked out of her bedroom by a padlock. Her parents are behaving oddly and her best friend won’t respond to her texts. Maybe she really was out of control that night. 

The guilt is getting to her father, Janus. He brought his family from Australia to LA to chase his dream of seeing his novel on the big screen, and he can’t let them down. Not again. But he’s not sure he can do what is necessary to keep this secret hidden. 

Kay gave up everything when she had kids. So now she’ll do whatever she has to do to take care of them. Her marriage, though, is a different story. And the neighbours—well, she’ll just have to be more careful.

Youngest son Casper was away that weekend, but he knows something isn’t right. His parents don’t look each other in the eye anymore. His father’s hands tremble for no reason. And where does Liv keep disappearing to in the middle of the night? Casper decides to find out what no one will tell him about that weekend.
 
Every family has its secrets, but what do the Jansen family have to hide?

When several small-town locals die under mysterious circumstances, an aspiring journalist is determined to prove the connection between them, only to discover the dangerous secrets they left behind.

Boney Creek is a dying town where not a lot happens. The perfect solution for married couple Addie and Toby who are escaping their own personal tragedy. But a quiet and simple life is not exactly possible with so many recent, strange deaths.

Seven locals, all gone too soon. That’s the nature of tragic accidents. And in a town this small, there’s no room for too many questions.

But Addie isn’t so sure. Although she never followed through on her dreams of becoming a journalist, she still has a reporter’s instincts. And her gut—not to mention all the small-town gossip—is telling her that whatever’s happening in Boney Creek is not as random as it seems.

There’s no such thing as coincidence, especially when it comes to seven bodies. And while burying her own secrets, Addie digs up far greater ones that will have her asking if she will be the town’s next so-called accident.

As the daughter of a London crime boss, Police Constable Philomena McCarthy walks a thin blue line keeping the two sides of her complicated life apart.

On patrol one night she discovers a child in pyjamas, wandering alone. Taking Daisy home, Phil uncovers the aftermath of a deadly home invasion, as three miles away a prominent jeweller is found strapped to an explosive in his ransacked store.

The crimes are linked, and all the evidence points to Phil's father as the mastermind.

Phil's two worlds are colliding, trapping her in the middle of a vicious gang war that will threaten her career and everyone she loves. Who can she trust - the badge or her own blood?

Three bodies are found scattered across South Africa. One on the shores of the Indian Ocean, one in a farm invasion in modern KwaZulu-Natal, and one in 1880, in the aftermath of the Anglo-Zulu War.

Detective Sannie van Rensburg and marine biologist and former soldier Adam Kruger are each on the trail of a mystery, while more than a century ago colonial police officer Peter Gregory has a secret mission: to find the lost sword of the great Emperor Napoleon Bonaparte. 

But he's not the only one who wants it. 

From the blood-soaked battlefields of colonial-era Zululand to the modern-day political struggles over land and poaching in South Africa and war in the Middle East, these investigations are on a dangerous collision course.

Because people will kill for a symbol of power.