The Case of the Chinese Boxes

Claudia Valentine embarks on a hunt for the elaborate golden dragon key, through a circuit of ancient treasures, modern Triad killings, disturbing kidnappings, sleazy back alleys, pubs, and exotic temples.Read more
Sorted on book title (not in series order)

Claudia Valentine embarks on a hunt for the elaborate golden dragon key, through a circuit of ancient treasures, modern Triad killings, disturbing kidnappings, sleazy back alleys, pubs, and exotic temples.Read more

Rainbow's got the blues. His girlfriend's dumped him; his assassin mate Rory's found God; his Aunt Rube's as sick as a bad joke; and his ex-wife's thrown up a barricade - all right, a cordon bleu - around his daughter Imogene.
So when a snake's let loose in a laboratory, his...Read more

Detective novel, following on from 'The Case of the Damascus Dagger' and preceding 'The Case of the Secret Assassin'. Set in the 21st century, a search for a missing teenager leads Ben and Rachel Bartholomew into mysterious and dangerous situations. The author's other publications include '...Read more

When Mister Rainbow finds a headless honcho in a King’s Cross alleyway, the tattoo around the corpse’s neck leaves little doubt as to its identity. Thomas L. Tycho was everybody’s enemy – a trickster, a dirty dealer, and a wide boy who made the mistake of wide boys the world over – not...Read more

Theater companies are notorious hotbeds of intrigue, and few are more intriguing than the company currently in residence at Oxford University. Center-stage is the beautiful, malicious Yseut, a mediocre actress with a stellar talent for destroying men. Rounding out the cast are more than a...Read more

She's a surgeon, she's beautiful and she desperately wants Mister Rainbow to shed some light on her husband's past. But when he does, she wishes he hadn't. Because what Rainbow discovers is a handless hood - and a whole lot of murders. Rainbow's a retro private eye who keeps himself to...Read more

When a few too many dead bodies turn up on Sydney’s mean streets, Mister Rainbow’s too busy to investigate – until an old flame goes up in smoke.
Then it’s no holds barred as the famous PI with the dancing feet finds himself pitted against the city’s crooked gamblers – and the...Read more

Murder is no laughing matter.
Yet a prominent Indian scientist dies in a fit of giggles when a Hindu goddess appears from a mist and plunges a sword into his chest.
The only one laughing now is the main suspect, a powerful guru named Maharaj Swami, who seems to...Read more

The first in a detective series that “immediately joins the No. 1 Ladies’ Detective Agency as representing the best in international cozies” ( Booklist , starred review).Meet Vish Puri, India’s most private investigator. Portly, persistent, and unmistakably Punjabi, he cuts a determined...Read more

The kids in a state - and if he doesn't play his cards right that could read Islamic state. Terrorists want to recruit him but he's too terrified to oblige. Instead he calls in Rainbow who finds himself in the thick of an affair that threatens to end in a bloodbath.
Can Rainbow...Read more

You think your phones are bugged and people are out to get you. Everyone’s a suspect and violence is the answer to everything. Put bluntly, you’re a psychopath who might one day kill a loved one in mistake for the Devil. You describe your nemesis as ‘horribly scarred’ one minute and ‘...Read more

The world of Ben Bartholomew. It is a world of standover gangs and armed terrorists, a world in which a P.I. For hire must carry a gun if he wants to live beyond lunchtime. It is a world of religious fanatics, petty tyrants, spies and nightmares, which explodes with intrigue and danger when...Read more

Jerry and Peter have been successfully conning vulnerable householders for years. But then Jerry decides to try the straight and narrow, getting an honest job in a chip shop. Once there he meets Imogen, pregnant and temporarily living with her step-grandmother, Charlotte Frost. In his new...Read more

Governess-turned-sleuth Miss Silver looks into the case of a Holocaust survivor who may have enemies to elude. William Smith isn’t sure what his name is, but he knows it isn’t William Smith. That was the name the Nazis gave him in 1942, when he was herded, along with so...Read more

'When you have eliminated all which is impossible, then whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth.'
In this, the final collection of Sherlock Holmes adventures, the intrepid detective and his faithful companion Dr Watson examine and solve twelve cases that...Read more

Cliff Hardy is flattered to be offered the job as head of security at the new Sydney casion. But the thought of office hours and wearing a suit put him off and her refuses in facour of his friend, Scot Galvani.
When Galvani is murdered and the police are indifferent and the widow...Read more

Cassie has survived a hit and run but now she hears her father has disappeared - supposedly run off with a news reporter. As a senior congressman and Speaker of the House, her father is an important player in the tense world of American politics. Cassie knows he would not walk away from his...Read more

Charles finds himself uncharacteristically employed in a film, having landed the part of Szabec, a middle management vampire in 'The Wreathing'. His co-star is swimwear model turned actress Jodie Ricks and before long, Jodie is using Charles as a confidant.Poor Jodie is in terrible trouble—...Read more

West of France, 1989.
A weeping killer deposits the unconscious body of nineteen year old Lucie Martin, her head wrapped in a blue plastic bag, into the water of a picturesque lake.
Lot-et-Garonne, 2003.
Fourteen years later a summer heatwave parches the...Read more

'I will never divorce you, though that is not to say that I might not be constrained some day to dispose of you.'Emily Salter returned to the sleepy seaside resort of Skinburness where she had spent her childhood holidays to come to terms with the break-up of her marriage to the enigmatic,...Read more

The fabulous Phryne Fisher, her sister Beth and her faithful maid, Dot, decide that Luna Park is the perfect place for an afternoon of fun and excitement with Phryne's two daughters, Ruth and Jane. But in the dusty dark Ghost Train, amidst the squeals of horror and delight, a mummified...Read more

Two teachers discover the body of the school's unpopular games mistress, shot through the heart from point-blank range. The school is thrown into chaos when the "cat" strikes again, and Julia Upjohn knows that without Poirot's help she could be next.Read more

Lenny Aaron is an ex-cop who now runs a business tracking down Melbourne's cats that have gone AWOL. Having left the police after her last investigation went horribly wrong, Lenny is gradually piecing her life back together with a little help from Zen and a fistful of analgesics. ...Read more

He is not what he seems . . .
Ed is delighted to meet his twenty-three year old daughter's fiancé for the first time. Abbey is head-over-heels in love with her new man. Smart, successful and handsome, Ryan appears to be the perfect future son-in-law....Read more

Some secrets you try to hide. Others you don’t dare let out … Twin Peaks meets The Dry in a deliciously dark and twisted tale that unravels a small town
Ambitious young journalist Marlowe ‘Lo’ Robertson would do anything to escape the suffocating confines of...Read more

A loveless marriage becomes a tangle of hatred … but who is pulling the strings?
Sydney, 1972
When Jane Fenton returns from Australia to her childhood home in England, free from the shadow of her overbearing...Read more

Don Bartholomew knew he was into crime. But he didn't know how deep-until the drugs turned up. From small-time crime to hit man for the drug gangs is a long road -- but it's worthwhile if your, briefcase holds sixty thousand dollars.
Originally published under the name of John...Read more

The body of sixteen-year-old Jasmine Dunn is washed up on a rocky foreshore in Auckland. The next day, her mother's body is found on a deserted beach.
Tova Tan lives downstairs from the Dunns and was seen arguing with Jasmine. Known to the police following the high-profile...Read more

Acclaimed explorer Rob Nash has lost his way. Grieving the loss of his wife, and blaming himself for her death, he sees no reason to carry on. But when his 'Uncle' Frank Douglas offers him the chance to lead a cave diving expedition in the jungles of Papua, Nash can see some light at the...Read more