Australian Crime

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.

It's a blindingly hot summer. International visitors surge into Sydney's Darling Harbour. Two-year-old Tommy is sailing his toy boat in the park there with his mother Phoebe. Tommy vanishes into thin air. The following winter, taunting notes written as nursery rhymes begin arriving at his parents' home. Little Boy Blue, where did you go? Who led you away? Only I know.

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.

In an encounter straight out of fiction, Katie might have met Mr Right on the long-haul flight from Melbourne to New York. Richard Sinclair is charming, handsome, wealthy, cultured—and married. In an open marriage, according to him. When he invites her to join him in his lush lakeside villa in Italy as his son’s au pair, it might just be the opportunity for a reset that Katie has been longing for.

Sometimes work can be murder. Detective Sergeant Kiara Lui has just broken up a loud brawl between two blokes in front of the Warrigal Public Library. But just as she's about to leave the scene, a man plummets from the sky and slams into the bike rack right in front of her, dead. Head of Library Services, Neville Adams, was hated by staff, borrowers, and in fact anybody who had ever met him. What might have tipped that hatred into outright murder? The building is quickly sealed, trapping all the suspects inside.

Corinne Gray is a woman whose life is falling apart. When probationary detective Kyle Nazarian unexpectedly knocks on her door on a rainy morning, she knows why. He wants to talk about her son, Ben. This is her chance to finally explain how her sweet-natured child – who loved history and dreamed of swimming for Olympic Gold – grew up to do the unthinkable. What really happened to Ben? And could anyone have prevented it?

Emma and Ariella, neighbours in one of Sydney’s most exclusive suburbs, appear to have it all—perfect homes, perfect husbands, perfect lives. But they both know dark secrets lurk beneath the surface and shallow waters can’t hide Ariella’s. Now she has been found murdered. Her daughter filmed the killing. Not knowing what she’s filmed, Emma’s daughter Kiki innocently uploads footage of Ariella’s brutal death. Emma fears the worst—the killer will know what she and Kiki have seen. Their safe suburban lives no longer exist.

On the eve of the global lockdown, Don Barlow opens the door of his old beachside cottage to find a pretty girl with pink-tipped hair, claiming to have nowhere to go. He allows her entry, and so begins a mystery set in unprecedented times: with the virus raging outside their home, the girl cannot be asked to leave, but what does he risk by having her stay?

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.

In 1998, the American Jorgenson family had been on a year-long road trip in Australia. One humid, storming night, the mother - Elsa Jorgenson - vanished in an isolated stretch of Australian everglades. Elsa was never seen again. That night, twelve-year-old Lily Jorgenson was left alone and terrified in the family camper—even her teenage sister Iris is missing. When Iris comes racing back through the rain, she refuses to tell where she’s been. Lily is certain her sister is hiding a dark secret.

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...

Flynn was only a teenager when her parents were killed in a terrible accident. Too young to lose her parents, too young to take on responsibility for her younger sister Kaiya, too young to protect Kaiya from the harshness of their new lives in the following years. Desperate to help her sister, Flynn reaches out to Willa Tomlinson, a grief counsellor renowned for helping her patients cope with profound loss. Under Willa’s influence and care, Kaiya finally seems to turn a corner, joining the climate action collective that Willa leads.

You'll have heard a few of these stories before, but not like this. It's a step-by-step history of my twenty-three years behind bars; what day to day life was really like in jail, what I did to survive and why I'll never go back. It's not a nice story.

A Riveting Legal Drama of Murder, Corruption, and Hidden Truths in 1980s Australia. Queensland, 1986. When the man he secretly loves is found dead, respected lawyer, Robert’s quiet suburban family life is shattered. And then he becomes the prime suspect – framed by a small group of corrupt police officers intent on burying the truth.

From the New York Times bestselling author of Exiles and The Dry comes a captivating new novel set in a modern ghost town. Carralon Ridge, a once vibrant village in rural New South Wales, has become a shell of itself, its houses and buildings bought up and left to rot by the mining company...

Two young women vanish in a seaside town. At the cliff's edge, nobody is who they seem. Desperate to escape the ghosts of his failed marriage, Cole upends his life. He leaves London behind for a remote stretch of coast, relishing the respite from the noise, drama, and relentless careerism that...

For fans of Jane Harper and true crime, a dark and gripping thriller set in a small town in the Australian Outback, by the author of the international bestseller WAKE. Gemma Guillory has lived in the Australian Outback enclave of Rainier her entire life. She knows the tiny, red-dust town’s ins...

Six minutes in the wrong place at the wrong time—that’s all it took to ruin Sydney detective Ted Conkaffey’s life. Accused but not convicted of a brutal abduction, Ted is now a free man—and public enemy number one. Maintaining his innocence, he flees north to keep a low profile amidst the steamy, croc-infested wetlands of Crimson Lake. There, Ted’s lawyer introduces him to eccentric private investigator Amanda Pharrell, herself a convicted murderer.

A country town, a brutal murder, a shameful past, a reckoning to come... The injustices of the past and dangers of the present envelop Aboriginal policewoman Renee Taylor, when her unwilling return to the small outback town of her childhood plunges her into the investigation of a brutal murder...

Four young boys are left alone in a hotel room while their parents dine downstairs. When Sara Farrow checks on the children at midnight, her son is missing. Distrustful of the police, Sara turns to Crimson Lake’s unlikeliest private investigators - disgraced cop Ted Conkaffey and convicted killer Amanda Pharrell. For Ted, the case couldn’t have come at a worse time. Two years ago, a false accusation robbed him of his career, his reputation, and most importantly, his family. But now, Lillian, the daughter he barely knows, is coming to stay in his ramshackle cottage by the lake.