Updates - Week Ending 29th March

Seeing something you shouldn't have makes life on the margins a whole lot scarier.

Ranger Cal Nyx works alone in the vast NSW bushland reserves but is pulled away from the quiet and solitude by a coded message that only one other person could understand.

Dif, the only remaining link to her family, is in danger. He’s also the last person the police are going to take seriously.

No stranger to the complications of Dif’s life, and with her femme MIA interstate, Cal burns rubber up and down a lonely coastline, calling in favors from her unique contacts to intercept a relentless killer.

Are Cal's skills, badass bravado and risky schemes enough to bring a single-minded murderer out of the shadows?

Can she save the one and only person who truly gets her?

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.

One of Us is Missing is a dark domestic thriller about the dangers lurking right in plain sight.

Murder or suicide? Alex’s freedom depends on the answer and time is running out.

Devastated by her husband’s so-called ‘suicide’, Alex insists someone had murdered him. Her doctor and the police think she’s crazy and send her to a psychiatric clinic. Drugged to the hilt, she grasps on proving that she’s not only sane but also right about her husband’s death. She’ll lose her freedom, her house, and her money if she fails.

Reluctantly Alex agrees to go to Seaview Manor, a retirement home, as a halfway solution to prove her sanity. Surprised Seaview Manor is not all seated yoga and bingo nights, she finds a handful of sassy residents dead set on having her back and hunting down the murderer with her.

Even the gardener with his Oliver-from-Lady-Chatterley’s-Lover-vibe steps up and offers not just help but also his heart. Alex and her friends are unsure whether they can trust him. He might be just the help they need… or put them all in terrible danger. They bring in the police and discover Patrick the gardener is not who he said he is. The suspicions run high.

When this Granny-Crime-Squad stumbles over unexpected evidence in Alex’s house, they know they’re closing in on some very dangerous people. They have to act quickly because attacks on Alex’s life spell big trouble and time is running out.

With Alex’s life at stake, will the friends be able to reveal the murderer in time?

A baby is missing…

When Maryanne Anderson receives a call on a beautiful December morning she has no idea her life is about to change forever. Sitting under the shade of the Jacaranda tree with baby Josh, she feels happy and relaxed. Mikey their dog is wagging his tail and licking Josh’s face, making him giggle. When she hears the phone ring inside the house, she tells Mikey to watch over Josh and runs inside, leaving the door open behind her. But when she returns - Josh is gone.

For Detective Inspector Ian Anderson, this case has never been more personal or heartbreaking. Josh is his baby. He and his team launch a massive search, but the trail goes cold. Devastated by the loss of their baby, Ian and Maryanne are plunged into a nightmare of fear and guilt. They blame themselves and each other. Their marriage threatens to crumble as they become obsessed with finding Josh.

But Josh is not the first baby to be abducted. Someone knows what’s happening to these babies. Someone who will stop at nothing to keep the truth buried.

She wonders if they have discovered her missing yet. Has it broken in the news? Who has been assigned to cover her story? Have they started spooling through her social media and pulling out photographs? Constructing a narrative about who she is and what possible reason any person has to kidnap or (let's be frank) kill her? She tries not to let out the whimper that's building in her sternum, at the thought that he might. Kill her, that is. He might kill her.

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.

Frank Winter is an ex-cop, a former hard-boiled Boston detective with a soft centre living in curmudgeonly retirement with his beloved dog, Dolly. But when his daughter's killer is released on parole, Frank's back, a man on a mission, and it's yesterday once more. But first, Frank's got a bunch of favours to call in.

Throw in a rookie minder cop who's great with computers but scared of guns, and help from the desirable Destiny, whose past is even murkier than Frank's... hell, you just know things will go according to plan.

A seasoned police detective and a dog with a nose for crime. One dead body. Twelve suspects.

Sydney, Australia, 1933 : Wealthy impresario and amateur Egyptologist Roland Cuthbert Barry is murdered on his 60th birthday, and everyone attending the evening’s celebrations is a suspect.

Detective Senior Sergeant Harold Chesterfield of Sydney Central Police has been sent by Chief Inspector Ron Thompson to Barry Island on the Hawkesbury River and the rambling sandstone house of the wealthy Barry family. Thompson is a longtime friend of Roland Barry, who has confided in him about threatening notes he has received, suggesting he will be held to account for past actions.

Harold Chesterfield discovers a curious cast of characters at Barry a long-suffering wife and an ambitious young mistress; a Russian ballet dancer who isn’t what he seems; Roland’s daughter and her lover, an Egyptian woman; the family doctor with a secret past; Roland’s two troubled sons; and the evening’s entertainment, a psychic medium, who, from the moment she steps foot on Barry Island, declares something terrible will happen.

With Harold is Ben, an English Pointer with a nose for crime; together, Harold and Ben will face their most challenging case.

Australia is in the grip of the Great Depression, and Harold is surrounded by tuxedos, sequined dresses, and sumptuous food. But when a severe storm hits and the electricity and telephone are cut off, Harold and the guests find that Roland Barry’s vast wealth cannot protect him, and Harold must uncover secrets, discover motives and find the killer.

Who knows more than they’re telling? Who has everything to hide?

I've always been better with plants than people . . .

Eustacia Rose is a Professor of Botanical Toxicology who lives alone in London with only her extensive collection of poisonous plants for company. She tends to her garden with meticulous care. Her life is quiet. Her schedule never changes. Until the day she hears a scream and the temptation to investigate proves irresistible.

Through her telescope, Professor Rose is drawn into the life of an extraordinarily beautiful neighbour, Simone, and nicknames the men who visit her after poisonous plants according to the toxic effect they have on Simone. But who are these four men? And why does Eustacia Rose recognize one of them?

Just as she preserves her secret garden, she feels inexplicably compelled to protect her neighbour. But when her precious garden is vandalized and someone close to Simone is murdered with a toxin derived from a rare poisonous plant, Eustacia finds herself implicated in the crime and decides to take matters into her own hands . . .

"Everything felt wrong, everywhere. The floor was at a weird angle – he took one step and staggered sideways against the wall. Was that shudder the house moving again?"

Zeke has to stay with his aunt and uncle in Lower Hutt after a landslide takes his East Coast home off its foundations. Allie puts her drought-ridden Otago dairy farm out of her mind and catches a plane to the capital city. Stephanie wonders why she’s sitting around a table at the Ministry for Resilience – again.

In 'Emergency Weather', three people find themselves in Wellington as the climate crisis crashes into their lives. A giant storm is on its way – what will be left of the city when it’s over?

Imogen Maguire is bewildered when in 2018 she is accosted in a Melbourne Street by a mysterious stranger who says her grandfather in New Zealand needs her help. But her grandfather is dead, isn’t he? A former journalist, Imogen decides to investigate and travels to Taranaki where she finds that her grandfather is very much alive, and someone is trying to frighten the old man off his farm.

A stalker that will stop at nothing to get what he wants.

Sometimes, lying is easier than telling the truth, but it can lead down a dangerous road.

Terrance Tiller is on a quest to prove Mark Wentworth's innocence. He thinks he knows who framed Mark for the abduction of Mikey Booth. Terrance believes he's found evidence that will force Detective Sergeant Wood to re-open the case. Unfortunately, what Terrance doesn't know while he watches Mary and Peter is that someone is watching him.

Lurking in the shadows is a stranger waiting for an opportune time to strike. When he does, Terrance wishes he'd let the police do their job. Instead, his obsession with clearing an innocent man suddenly turns into the fight of his life. When faced with an impossible choice, and with time against him, Terrance realises he could lose everything.

When DS Theo Fleming is called back from leave to attend a crime scene, he has reservations. The victim is a geologist who had been researching long-disused copper mines on land whose title is disputed by local Māori. Given the complexity of tribal politics and distrust of the police, Theo's local knowledge may not be an advantage. He engages his scientist friend, Caspian, to help with the police inquiry. Theo’s superior in the CIB is convinced that this crime is the fallout of a gangland dispute over drugs or retribution for violations of Māori burial sites. Theo and Caspian’s probings reveal an altogether more sinister scenario, one in which the sins of the father cast a long shadow.

Four friends.
One tragic death.
20 years of secrets and lies.

One wintery night, when they are young, Anna and her three friends Rudy, Seth, and Dougal are involved in an accident in which a stranger is killed – that night it snows heavily, covering everything up. They agree to keep it a secret, but then one of them is accused of murder and sent to prison.

Twenty years later, Anna and her friends are thrown together again following a funeral, and this time Anna is forced to finally look at what actually happened all those years ago. Anna's recollection, however, is not what her friends remember.

Could she really have been mistaken about what happened?

Will digging up the past reveal a truth she would rather not know?

And what will it mean to her carefully constructed life if the last 20 years has been nothing more than a lie?

She needs to write the ending ... before she meets hers.

Theo has one dream – to become a bestselling author. Determined to make her mark in the literary world, she heads to the US on a whim to stay with her brother Gus and focus on her writing. But her plans take an unexpected turn when she befriends a famous author, Dan Murdoch, at a local bar – and then he turns up dead. Suddenly, Theo finds herself as the prime suspect.

As Theo grapples with the shocking turn of events, she realizes that Dan may not have been the person he seemed to be, and there is something sinister going on in the world of publishing. Desperate to clear her name and uncover the truth, Theo sets out on a quest to find out who killed Dan and why.

As she digs deeper, Theo uncovers a web of deceit, conspiracy, and hidden motives, with clues leading her to a shadowy online platform called The Shield. With her own life in danger, Theo must unravel the mystery before she becomes the next victim.

Addison Harper is back, and with another dead body at his feet. Only this time, the entire town saw it happen.

Milverton is in the running for the Terrific Town Award, so a dramatic death at the opening ceremony is far from ideal. Addison had only been lending a hand, but now finds himself much more involved than he’d ever hoped. To think his biggest worry before had been his upcoming date with Sergeant Jake Murphy.

As for the sergeant, he can hardly ignore a hall full of witnesses even if he wanted to. And they’re all pointing the finger at his date, Milverton’s newest arrival, Addison Harper.

When brilliant but emotionally-tortured New York journalist Bec Corelli learns her father has died mysteriously on vacation in India, she walks out on her job and heads to Delhi. Pharmaceutical CEO Ernst Reiniger, facing ruin over a failed drug, has hatched a chilling plan to save his 300-year-old family company. With a lethal virus decimating the Mexican resort city of Cabo San Lucas and threatening a global pandemic more deadly than Covid, Reiniger has the inside running on producing a vaccine. As Bec chases leads across India, supported by blogger Mike Bullard and New Zealand eco-warrior Jay Duggan, she is confronted by powerful forces determined to stop her discovering the truth about her father.

It’s not just a rippling ‘scam’ job. Has Australia been infiltrated at levels they’ve never known?

Elaina Williams uses a Cobra Pose in her Yoga studio to boost her energy – she will need it! Elaina’s father, Edward, is in trouble. He’s disappeared. 

As a solicitor and now yoga instructor, Elaina drags Ric, a man she’s fallen for, into the bursting web of techno-thrilling intrigue.

Ric Peters has just returned from a disastrous trip to Indonesia. Ric bills himself as a photojournalist. Elaina suspects he shoots more than just photographs. Ric has insight into the journey he and Elaina must take. He knows Elaina isn’t ready for what’s going to happen. There are too many moving parts for him to control. 

Time is running out before The Cobra and The Wolf strike with their heist. They are extending their fangs towards Australia’s ‘golden coastline’ to bite into and destabilise financial institutions worldwide. 

The sparkling sub-tropical city of Brisbane, Queensland, is the epicentre of this hacking tsunami of the century! But these hackers are good at hiding. They make a living out of it. They are submerged Phantoms leaving no tracks.

Can the burgeoning amateur sleuth Elaina piece this puzzle together before her father’s fate is sealed? How far is Ric willing to go in deciding to save Elaina … or Australia?

Beneath the sheen of its orderly streets and obedient populace, all is not well in the port city of Kobe. Business is as brisk as the Haru-ichiban spring breeze for Mami Suzuki, hotel clerk by day, private investigator by night.

Who's stealing from Japan's biggest pearl trader? Where's the master sushi chef and why are his knives missing? How did the tea ceremony teacher's brother really die? And what does an island of cats have to do with a pregnant Shinto shrine maiden?

From the Kobe wharfs to the rugged Japan Sea coast, the subtropics of Okinawa, and a remote island community in the Seto Inland Sea, each new adventure ends with a universal truth - that there are two sides to every story of misfortune.

Seven friends.
One last weekend.
A mansion half in ruins.
No room for lies.
Someone is going to confess.
Because there should have been eight. . . .

They met when they were teenagers. Now they’re adults, and time has been kind to some and unkind to others—none more so than to Bea, the one they lost nine long years ago.

They’ve gathered to reminisce at Bea’s family’s estate, a once-glorious mansion straight out of a gothic novel. Best friends, old flames, secret enemies, and new lovers are all under one roof. But when the weather turns and they’re snowed in at the edge of eternity, there’s nowhere left to hide from their shared history.

As the walls close in, the pretense of normality gives way to long-buried grief, bitterness, and rage. Underneath it all, there’s the nagging feeling that Bea’s shocking death wasn’t what it was claimed to be. And before the weekend is through, the truth will be unleashed—no matter the cost. . . .

In a grimy graffiti-covered recess in one of Melbourne tangled inner city laneways, a woman is found murdered. ‘Why would anyone want to kill her? She was so ordinary,’ was the oft-repeated phrase DI Robbie Gray heard when the name of the deceased was revealed.

So why, then, she asked herself, was the body found propped up in such an extraordinary position, almost as if she was intimate with the portrait on the wall. Was this death intended to be symbolic, or was the placement merely a device to deceive?

Set against a background of civil unrest and rising white extremism, a government tainted by corruption and a family desperate to hide secrets, DI Robbie Gray, along with her Indigenous officer Mac must also grapple with their own demons of guilt and failure. When an arrest is made, they realise that not all killers hold a weapon, masks don’t always disguise, and the legacy of long-held secrets can have tragic consequences.

A long-haul flight. Two ambitious dance mums. A child in danger.

Bridget and Simone aren’t friends. But their daughters are in the same dance troupe, so they’re flying to Los Angeles for the girls to perform at Disneyland. Simone’s daughter Zahra is indisputably a leader in the group, but Bridget’s daughter Becky is a talent on the rise.

Simone and her husband are accustomed to business class, but Bridget is less comfortable there. Both lonely women are surprised to find something in common, until Bridget discovers images of Zahra and other dancers that shock her. Are they exploitative or art?

A fierce examination of their dance world ensues, tension rises, and there’s no way for anyone to escape it. For two very different families and four teenagers, what unfolds over the flight will shock and threaten to destroy them.

Nick Greene flees the life he’s known in exchange for peace in his quaint town’s rugged forest park, but when a curious fisherman foils his tranquillity, Nick’s missing persons case turns into a manhunt.

Heading to the neighbouring city of Abercrombie, Nick finds refuge in a run-down motel known for taking in hopeless cases. He forms a friendship with his neighbour, Marina, but little does Nick know, a fatigued detective from his hometown is hunting him down, determined to redeem himself after his first and only missing persons case back in 1997 ended in disaster.

Dana Osborne just wants to hang out in her guitar store talking music with her assistant Brody, and her colourful customers. But when once-famous prog-rock band Cranial Bypass decide to put on a reunion gig in her small town of Rockingham West, things get unexpectedly hectic. Especially when the band's guitarist Apocalypse BusLane is found murdered at a rehearsal. Despite being warned by the Police to keep her nose out of things after the last time she helped crack a case, suddenly Constable Wade McNeish is back, asking her to help out. Dana's quiet life is about to have the volume turned up to eleven, as Wade asks her to find out what happened -- by joining the band!

Tarquin the Honest and Lunar Nix return with more underhand shenanigans and razor-tongued repartee to pull off a heist so big, bards will sing ballads of their derring-do for centuries.

Created for the ancient dragons, a priceless treasure is kept under Elven lock and key at the heart of the great city of Ribekah. Tarquin the Honest, Wizard of the Silver Weasel, is under orders to ‘rehome’ the treasure from the ultra-secure Elderyn Museum. The mission is an impossible one – even the Thieves’ Guild thinks it is folly – but Tarquin has a cunning plan involving magic, trickery and a ragtag band with a unique set of talents. However, with the City Guard and a coven of vampires trying to thwart him, Tarquin must make a deal with the devil is he is to succeed. Can the wily wizard outwit the museum’s security, the vampires and the Thieves’ Guild or will the delinquent gambler’s chips finally be cashed in?

A local fisherman finds the body of a missing American archaeologist

Detective Inspector Betancourt of the Singapore Marine Police is first on the scene. Something doesn't quite add up. He finds out that the archaeologist, Richard Fulbright, was close to deciphering the previously-untranslatable script on a pre-colonial relic known as the Singapore Stone. This was no accidental drowning.

Is there more to this case than archaeological rivalries?

Betancourt also discovers that Fulbright had been having an affair. He is sure he is onto something bigger than just academic infighting.

A government opium factory draws criminal interest

In his investigations into the death, Betancourt finds his own life in danger, and now he has also put himself on the wrong side of British Military Intelligence, and he is unsure which set of opponents he fears the most...

The novel is set largely on Waiheke Island, off the coast of Auckland City, Aotearoa New Zealand. The central character is a man with a secret past, who interrupts a home invasion and becomes embroiled in a series of events which lead to his prosecution for multiple murders.

He is tormented by ghosts from his past, which come back to haunt him and threaten his very existence. He is defended in court by a young Maori lawyer, who falls in love with his son. Another very significant character is the enigmatic Italian Carlo, whose mother owns the Waiheke house that was invaded, and who we discover is 'Ndrangheta mafia.

Drugs, crooked (and straight) cops, mercenaries, gangs, Interpol and international intrigue are all part of the story, with plot twists and turns aplenty. Notions of family, particularly fathers and sons, and brothers, but also wider organisational family ties, loyalty and 'mate-ship', are also themes throughout, as is 'utu', vengeance.

Fast paced and exciting, it will hold the reader's attention from beginning to end.

You'd think you would be allowed to relax over Christmas, but not in the world of the Thursday Murder Club.

On Boxing Day, a dangerous package is smuggled across the English coast. When it goes missing, chaos is unleashed. The body count starts to rise - including someone close to the Thursday Murder Club - as our gang face an impossible search and their most deadly opponents yet.

With the clock ticking down and a killer heading to Cooper's Chase, has their luck finally run out? And who will be 'The Last Devil To Die'?

In the darkest hour, a blood-soaked teenager flees the rural Gerandaroo football oval. Eight months later, Bess, a young teacher, returns home to Gerandaroo. A childhood game of dare with her former best-friend forces Bess to form a women's footy team to play against Denby, a rival town. Bess reluctantly recruits players, but the team has to contend with hostile locals - including Beth's own father. Will this help the small community to come back together - or will it be the final thing that blows everything apart? As tensions in the town boil over, so too do resentments and secrets and violence that have been previously held tight and close. Darkly told and breathlessly compelling, Darkness Runs Deep is a striking new Australian crime novel about the best and worst of who we are.

Man. Made. is the fifth book in a crime thriller series which features Dan Calder.

Calder is an ex-cop who specialised in covert surveillance and undercover operations during his career in the UK Police. Dan's very unique set of skills have enabled him to investigate crimes and criminals in the UK and also in his new home country of New Zealand. On opposite sides of the world, the two countries could not be more different in many ways and yet when it comes to the good guys up against the bad, some things never change.

Man. Made. is set against the backdrop of the hottest weekend of Summer 2000 and it's a public holiday to boot. Dan Calder’s at home with his girlfriend and she is packing up to leave when a call-out from Headquarters comes as a blessed relief. A run-of-the-mill job like a hundred the team’s done before. Once he and his surveillance colleagues are all in position, all they can do is wait for the target to move.

Fortunately for Dan, this job calls for the Obs Van which is his happy place. It’s mechanical idiosyncrasies make them kindred spirits in many ways. Plus double time for just sitting and watching the target’s front door. ‘Money for jam.’ As his best friend Nick would say.

To take his mind off the end of his latest domestic disaster, what could be better than whiling away the solitary hours by listening to all of his favourite songs, freshly installed on his brand-new iPod.

But Dan’s life is about to be turned upside down and ripped apart to the soundtrack of his past and present-day life.

The result could destroy him completely… or it could just be the making of him.