Organise yourself early by keeping up to date on the upcoming releases from your favourite Australian crime authors.
Listed below are the Australian crime fiction novels that will be released in the coming weeks or months.
Included is the exact release date along with the publisher details and a book synopsis that has been provided by the publisher. Where possible we have also given an indication of the sub-genre that we believe best describes the book.
March 2024
Devil's Kitchen by Candice Fox
Publisher: Random House Australia
Pub Date: 26 March 2024
Sub-Genre: Thriller
Series: stand alone
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When a city’s heroes become its boldest criminals . . .
For years the firefighters of New York’s Engine 99 have rushed fearlessly into hot zones, saving countless lives and stopping devastating blazes in their tracks.
They’ve also stolen millions from banks, jewellery stores and art galleries. With their inside knowledge and specialist equipment, they’ve become the most successful heist crew on the East Coast.
Their newest member, Andrea ‘Andy’ Nearland, is not what she seems either. She’s an undercover operative, hunting the men of Engine 99 for a host of crimes – including the murder of an off-duty cop and the disappearance of a mother and child.
As the clock counts down to the gang’s most daring heist yet, loyalties begin to fray and mistrust boils over. Andy’s career is all smoke and mirrors, but infiltrating this crew of ‘heroes’ might prove to be her most dangerous job of all . . .
Pheasants Nest by Louise Milligan
Publisher: Allen & Unwin
Pub Date: 26 March 2024
Sub-Genre: Thriller
Series: stand alone
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Kate Delaney has made the biggest mistake of her life. She picked the wrong guy to humiliate on a girls' night out and now she is living every woman's worst nightmare. Kate finds herself brutalised, bound and gagged in the back of a car being driven god knows where by a man whose name she doesn't know, and she is petrified about what's in store for her.
As a journalist who is haunted by the crimes she's had to report over her career, Kate is terrifyingly familiar with the statistics about women who go missing—and the fear and trauma behind the headlines. She knows only too well how those stories usually end.
Kate can only hope the police will find her before it's too late, but she's aware a random crime is hardest to solve. As the clock ticks down, she tries to keep herself sane by thinking about her beloved boyfriend and friends, escaping into memories of love and happy times together. She knows she cannot give way to despair.
As the suspense escalates, Kate's boyfriend Liam is left behind, struggling with his shock, fear and desperation as the police establish a major investigation. The detectives face their own feelings of anguish and futility as they reflect on the cases they didn't solve in time and the victims they couldn't save. They know Kate's chances of survival diminish with every passing hour.
Bone Lands by Pip Fioretti
Publisher: Affirm Press
Pub Date: 26 March 2024
Sub-Genre: Noir Thriller
Series: stand alone
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1911, on a winter's night in arid New South Wales wool country, mounted trooper Augustus Hawkins discovers the bodies of three young people. They are scions of the richest family in the district, savagely murdered on a road that Hawkins should have been patrolling, had he not been busy bedding the local schoolteacher.
Detectives arrive from Sydney and the disgraced Hawkins, a traumatised veteran of the Boer War, comes under fierce scrutiny. With his honour and sanity at stake, he becomes hell-bent on finding the murderer. But as ever darker secrets are revealed about the people he thinks of as friends, Hawkins is forced to confront an uncomfortable question: who is paying the price for the new nation's prosperity?
Her Covered Bones by Fiona Tarr
Publisher: Kindle
Pub Date: 29 March 2024
Sub-Genre: Police Procedural
Series: 6th book in the Opal Fields series
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When dark secrets come to light, a trail of murder and deceit will follow.
Constable Jenny Williams spent the last decade obsessed with finding her missing cousin. She became a cop, moved to a remote outback mining town and put her career on the line to track Melanie down. Now she’s been found, Jenny should be overjoyed…
But her cousin’s past is full of unanswered questions and dark secrets. Jenny is willing to ignore it all, until a woman’s body is uncovered at William Creek Station - the very same place Melanie disappeared from all those years ago.
As the investigation kicks into high gear, Jenny’s gut instincts scream there must be a connection between Melanie’s disappearance and the suspicious deaths at William Creek Station.
When she finds the connection, she won’t be the only one who wishes it never came to light.
April 2024
The Cryptic Clue by Amanda Hampson
Publisher: Viking
Pub Date: 3 April 2024
Sub-Genre: Cozy Mystery
Series: 2nd book in the Tea Ladies Mystery series
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In ZigZag Lane, in the heart of Sydney’s rag-trade district, tea ladies Hazel, Betty and Irene find themselves in hot water. Having already solved a murder, kidnapping and arson case, and outwitting an arch criminal, they have proved themselves a useful resource and earned the respect of a local police officer. Now he needs their help to solve a plot that threatens security.
As if that’s not enough, Irene gets a coded message directing her to the spoils of a bank robbery, which sends the tea ladies on a treasure hunt with an unexpected outcome.
There’s also trouble brewing within the walls of Empire Fashionwear, where an interloper threatens not just Hazel’s job but the very role of tea lady. It’s up to Hazel to convince her friends to abandon their trolleys and take action to save their livelihoods – before it’s too late.
The Miller Women by Kelli Hawkins
Publisher: HarperCollins
Pub Date: 3 April 2024
Sub-Genre: Suspense
Series: stand alone
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When a teenage girl goes missing, Nicola Miller fears for her own daughter. Not for Abby's mental health or safety, but that she might have had something to do with it. She worries her daughter is a killer. Just like her.
Nicola has never told the truth about what happened with Abby's father. But now as the search for Cara continues, Nicola, her mother Joyce and her daughter Abby all risk their secrets coming to light.
A stunning, captivating and yet unnerving exploration of how the sins of the fathers - or in this case, the mothers - can echo down the generations.
Sanctuary by Garry Disher
Publisher: Text Publishing
Pub Date: 3 April 2024
Sub-Genre: Suspense
Series: stand alone
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Grace is a thief: a good one. She was taught by experts and she’s been practising since she was a kid. She specialises in small, high-value items—stamps, watches—and she knows her Jaeger-LeCoultres from her Patek Philippes. But it’s a solitary life, always watchful, always moving. It’s not the life she wants.
Lying low after a run-in with an old associate, Grace walks into Erin Mandel’s rural antiques shop and sees a chance for something different. A normal job. A place to call home.
But someone is looking for Erin. And someone’s looking for Grace, too.
And they are both, in their own ways, very dangerous men.
It Takes A Town by Aoife Clifford
Publisher: Ultimo Press
Pub Date: 3 April 2024
Sub-Genre: Mystery
Series: stand alone
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Everyone dies famous in a country town, but glamorous Vanessa Walton was a shining star. A celebrity since a television commercial when she was a child, Vanessa is back on the front page for all the wrong reasons; after a terrible storm she has been found dead at the bottom of her stairs.
At first her death seems to be a simple accident, but anonymous letters are discovered that suggest otherwise – and when 16-year-old Jasmine Landridge claims it is murder, she suddenly disappears. As the police begin to investigate, secrets are exposed and friendships unravel.
What happens to a community when murders and abductions sit alongside petty workmates, teenage tribulations and longstanding friendships? It will take a town to solve this crime, but what will be broken in the effort to piece together the truth?
The Engraver's Secret by Lisa Medved
Publisher: HarperCollins
Pub Date: 3 April 2024
Sub-Genre: Suspense
Series: stand alone
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Spanish Netherlands, 1620s: raised by her father Lucas to know her mind, Antonia Vorsterman sees everything that goes on in her world - all the rivalries and jealousies that course through the artists' studios and workshops of Antwerp.
Drawn into the lively household of the artist Peter Paul Rubens, whose work her father engraves for a living, Antonia begins to see a life of colour and possibility for herself - until Lucas entrusts her with a terrible secret that will alter the course of their family's future.
Belgium, present day: haunted by the recent loss of her mother, art historian Charlotte Hubert moves to Antwerp to research her hero, the Baroque master Rubens, and to seek answers about the father she's never met.
But a startling discovery hidden inside an ancient map folio turns Charlotte's quiet academic life into a dangerous hunt for long-lost treasures, missing for 400 years. In the shadowy cloisters of the university, where ambition, obsession and violence run deep, nothing is as it seems.
Charlotte is certain of one thing - no one can be trusted.
Centuries apart, Charlotte's and Antonia's lives intertwine as they unearth long-buried secrets about a master and his engraver where theft, betrayal and the fallout of family loyalty run rampant.
Death Holds the Key by Alexander Thorpe
Publisher: Fremantle Press
Pub Date: 3 April 2024
Sub-Genre: Cozy Mystery
Series: 2nd book in the Mendicant Monk series
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When loathed landholder Fred O’Donnell is found dead in a locked room with a bullet in his chest, rookie Detective Hartley must seek help from a mysterious wanderer to solve the case. And it’s one where everyone, including his family, has a motive and a secret to keep.
Featuring the mendicant monk from Thorpe’s previous novel, Death Leaves the Station, readers will be drawn into the world of small-town Western Australia in the late 1920s, delighting in the characters as they navigate the strained sensibilities and dark secrets of the past.
Full of twists and turns, this seemingly impossible murder mystery is cosy crime writing at its finest.
Shock Waves by Fleur McDonald
Publisher: Allen & Unwin
Pub Date: 3 April 2024
Sub-Genre: Rural Police Procedural
Series: 10th book in the Detective Dave Burrows series
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Detective Dave Burrows has longed for the top job in the Stock Squad but never thought he'd be acting in that role while his partner and best mate, Detective Bob Holden, is treated for melanoma.
Bob is keen to get back on the road and Dave can't wait to go bush either, expecting the trip will be much the same as usual.
But the trip doesn't play out that way.
Multiple bomb blasts in the small country town of Kallygarn send shock waves through the state of Western Australia, and Dave and Bob are once again drawn into the criminal underworld.
One Of Us Is Missing by B.M. Carroll
Publisher: Affirm Press
Pub Date: 30 April 2024
Sub-Genre: Domestic Thriller
Series: stand alone
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There's no such thing as safety in numbers ...
Rachel and Rory Sullivan decide to celebrate making it through a difficult year by taking their teenagers, Emmet and Bridie, to their first stadium concert. By the end of the night, one of the four has vanished without a trace.
As the police investigation intensifies, suspicion is cast on the remaining family members. Everyone has been deceiving one another, but who is to blame for what went wrong? The passing of each hour amplifies their terror that life will never be the same again.
Red River Road by Anna Downes
Publisher: Affirm Press
Pub Date: 30 April 2024
Sub-Genre: Outback Thriller
Series: stand alone
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On the Coral Coast of Western Australia, solo traveller Katy is on a mission to find her free-spirited sister, Phoebe, who disappeared along the same route a year ago. But as she drives her campervan further into the wild north, Katy realises she's not as alone as she'd first believed. Soon she is pulled into a complicated web of secrets, lies, myths and stories that force her to question everything she thought she knew about her sister.
In this nerve-shredding outback thriller, our obsessions with freedom and beauty collide with our fear of what lies in the wilderness, and the truth behind Phoebe's disappearance proves stranger and darker than Katy could ever have guessed...
June 2024
Storm Child by Michael Robotham
Publisher: Hachette Australia
Pub Date: 26 June 2024
Sub-Genre: Thriller
Series: 4th book in the Cyrus Haven & Evie Cormac series
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The most painful of Evie Cormac's memories have been locked away, ever since she was held prisoner as a child - a child whose rescue captured hearts and headlines.
Forensic psychologist Cyrus Haven's mission is to guide her to something near normality. But today, on a British beach, seventeen bodies wash up in front of them. There is only one survivor, with two women still missing. And Evie's nightmares come roaring back . . .
Whatever happened all those years ago lies at the core of this new tragedy. Because these deaths are no accident. The same dark forces are reaching out, dragging her back into the storm.
Evie must now call upon Cyrus's unique skills, and her own, in their search for the missing pieces of this complex and haunting puzzle. But will that be enough to save them? And who will pay for the past?
July 2024
The Community by Christine Gregory
Publisher: Ultimo Press
Pub Date: 1 July 2024
Sub-Genre: Thriller
Series: stand alone
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Paradise has a price
A murder. A disappearance. A sinister network.
Steels Creek is an idyllic retreat in the Sunshine Coast hinterland. It's a place where everyone knows their neighbours and no one locks their doors. Investigative journalist Lars Nilsson who has moved to the settlement following a public fall from grace is trying to live a quiet life far from the crime reporting he was once feted for.
But when a backpacker's body is found floating in a nearby waterhole and hours later his best friend's daughter is reported missing, Lars is compelled to investigate, putting him back in the cross-hairs of police. What he finds may not only destroy his tightknit community but also the life he has worked so hard to rebuild.
Lest Tides Turn by Phillipa Nefri Clark
Publisher: Amazon Digital
Pub Date: 28 July 2024
Sub-Genre: Police Procedural
Series: 3rd book in the DS Liz Moorland series
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Paradise has a price
A murder. A disappearance. A sinister network.
Steels Creek is an idyllic retreat in the Sunshine Coast hinterland. It's a place where everyone knows their neighbours and no one locks their doors. Investigative journalist Lars Nilsson who has moved to the settlement following a public fall from grace is trying to live a quiet life far from the crime reporting he was once feted for.
But when a backpacker's body is found floating in a nearby waterhole and hours later his best friend's daughter is reported missing, Lars is compelled to investigate, putting him back in the cross-hairs of police. What he finds may not only destroy his tightknit community but also the life he has worked so hard to rebuild.