Sorted on book title (not in series order)
San Francisco, 1849: a place gripped by gold fever, swarming with desperate men come to seek their fortune. Among them are former convicts, Australians quick to seize control in a town without masters, a town for the taking. Into this world steps an Australian boy in search of his mother....Read more
David Whish-Wilson is best known for his historical crime fiction set in Perth and surrounds, but The Coves takes us to 1849 San Francisco, gold fever and the Australian gangs who controlled the part of it known as Sydney-town....Read more
Is there really such a thing as an innocent person?
Teachers, cops, mothers, wives, everyone has their breaking point; that moment where it could go either way. From the prostitute with no way out, to the bitter author, and a cop who just wants his leave, the characters in this...Read more
Taking a central theme of "is there really such a thing as an innocent person?" and asking a combination of well known and emerging Crime Fiction Writers from Australia to address the question, has culminated in the creation of CRIME SCENES - a short story collection which works on a number...Read more
Paul Cutler is a former undercover operative, now working off the books for his handler, Malik Khalil. When Cutler is tasked with investigating the disappearance of an Australian marine scientist on a Taiwanese distant water fishing vessel, Cutler realises that the apparent murder he' s investigating points to a slew of much darker crimes.Read more
CUTLER, the novel, features Paul Cutler, the former undercover operative, now working "off the books" in the dangerous and unpredictable world of investigator for hire. In this story he's tasked with finding the truth about the disappearance of an Australian marine scientist, whilst on a Taiwanese distant water fishing vessel, working in the incredibly murky and dodgy world of deep sea trawling and fisheries.Read more
2025 SHORTLIST FOR THE DANGER AWARDS REVEALED
MEDIA RELEASE
Every year the Danger Awards honour the best stories about crime and justice that champion an Australian setting. With a strong sense of time and place at their heart, it...Read more
From the Land Down Under comes seventeen dark criminal tales, including Garry Disher’s first ever Wyatt story, unpublished for over a decade, and new fiction by Peter Corris, Leigh Redhead, David Whish-Wilson, Adrian McKinty, Angela Savage, Helen Fitzgerald and more – including Greig...Read more
Buried in the darkest corners, or glittering away in the brightest hotspots there are bits and pieces of everyone's Australia being scribbled down on the back of beer mats, place mats, table cloths and menu cards. There are people writing great dollops of city based, mean gritty, and bright...Read more
Trainee private investigator Lee Southern finds himself drawn into a web of danger and deceit as he investigates a series of bribery attempts targeting a wealthy entrepreneur. Under the expert tutelage of retiring PI Frank Swann, Lee uses all of his developing skills, instincts and cunning...Read more
When a brothel madam is shot on a Perth golf course in 1975 it should be a routine murder enquiry. But it isn't. In fact there's barely an investigation at all, and Superintendent Swann thinks he knows why. Heroin is the new drug in town and the money is finding its way into some very...Read more
LINE OF SIGHT by Western Australian based writer David Whish-Wilson, uses the real-life murder of brothel madam Shirley Finn as the basis for his fictional murder of Ruby Devine (hat-tip to Tilly perhaps?)
In the fictional version the facts of Ruby's murder are extremely...Read more
Follow Paul Cutler on his next adventure as he fights the cocaine gold rush.
Assuming his new identity as Paul O’Keefe, Paul is tasked with finding the supplier of a surge of Mexican cartel meth flooding Australian streets. Assigned to infiltrate a newly appointed security...Read more
It’s the early 1980s: the heady days of excess, dirty secrets and personal favours. Former detective Frank Swann is still in disgrace, working as a low-rent PI. But when he’s offered a security job by the premier’s fixer, it soon becomes clear that someone is bugging the premier’s phone –...Read more
It would seem that there is a rich vein of corruption, vice and criminality to be mined in 1970's and 80's Perth, if the ongoing involvements of Frank Swann, disgraced cop, now private eye from the pen of local author David Whish-Wilson, are anything to go by.
OLD SCORES is the...Read more
San Francisco, 1856. Irish-born James ‘Yankee’ Sullivan is being held in jail by the Committee of Vigilance, which aims to rout the Australian criminals from the town. As Sullivan’s mistress seeks his release and as his fellow prisoners are taken away to be hanged, the convict tells a story...Read more
It is Fremantle in 1989 and Frank Swann is at home, suffering from an undiagnosed and debilitating illness.
When Frank is called in to investigate an incident at a local brothel, it soon appears there is a link between the death of two women and the arrival of the US nuclear-...Read more
SHORE LEAVE is the fourth novel in the Frank Swann series. Frank's an ex-cop, now private investigator in 1970's / 80's Perth and Fremantle. In this outing it's 1989 and the Yanks are in town, and with the arrival of a huge US nuclear-powered aircraft carrier, there are lots of sailors on...Read more
Western Australia, 1988. After betraying the Knights bikie gang, seventeen-year-old Lee Southern flees to the city with nothing left to lose.
Working as a rogue tow truck driver in Perth, he is captured by right-wing extremists whose combination of seduction and blackmail...Read more
Ex-detective Frank Swann is now on the outside of the police force – the only way to get justice done in Perth. In 1979 the city is a place of celebration and corruption. There are street parties, official glad-handing – even a royal visit – to commemorate a century and a half since...Read more
In Zero at the Bone, the second book in this series, Frank Swann has moved more sideways than on. Working as a PI, he finds himself dragged into the suicide of geologist Max Henderson, whose wife Jennifer enlists Swann’s services to find out the reasons for his death – there is no doubt...Read more