This Thursday temptations post is upcoming releases, or books that are out now.
The Fatal Island
By a Walkley Award-winning journalist, a gripping true crime-meets-political intrigue about East Timor, a place where animistic belief, witchcraft and tribal conflict ensure that truth and justice follow separate, uncertain paths.
A president shot, a prime minister attacked, a rebel leader executed at point-blank range, and a beautiful Australian-Timorese woman accused of orchestrating the chaos. All fifty minutes flying time from Darwin.
With President Jose Ramos Horta recovering from his wounds in Darwin, and Australia sent in to restore order, the rebels go on the run while their dead leader’s mistress, Angie Pires, is charged with being their ringleader.
To her rescue comes Australian barrister Jon Tippett, who soon breaks every professional responsibility by falling in love and sleeping with her.
As a dramatic political crisis ripples through the young nation of East Timor, conspiracy, treachery and a cloud of deceit quickly shrouds events, denying a clear path to the truth.
In this hard-boiled book based on his own reporting, journalist Paul Toohey unravels the circumstances that lead to the death of the rebel leader Reinado, a man many wanted to see dead. Fast-paced and razor-sharp, The Fatal Island exposes the dangerous power struggles behind the headlines, and Australia’s own role in the crisis.
The First Friend
Even the worst person has a best friend.
A chilling black comedy, The First Friend imagines a gangster mob in charge of a global superpower.
The Soviet Union 1938: Lavrentiy Beria, 'The Boss' of the Georgian republic, nervously prepares a Black Sea resort for a visit from 'The Boss of Bosses', his fellow Georgian Josef Stalin. Under escalating pressure from enemies and allies alike, Beria slowly but surely descends into murderous paranoia.
By his side is Vasil Murtov, Beria's closest friend since childhood. But to be a witness is dangerous; Murtov must protect his family and play his own game of survival while remaining outwardly loyal to an increasingly unstable Beria. The tension ramps up as Stalin's visit and the inevitable bloodbath approaches. Is Murtov playing Beria, or is he being played?
The First Friend is a novel in a time of autocrats, where reality is a fiction created by those who rule. Reflecting on Putin's Russia, Trump's America, Xi's China and Murdoch's planet Earth, it is at once a satire and a thriller, a survivor's tale in which a father has to walk a tightrope every day to save his family from a monster and a monstrous society. Where safety lies in following official fictions, is a truthful life the ultimate risk?
Free World
When an assassination attempt in a prison cell winds up with the wrong man dead, Lee Southern is hired to protect the real target. The millennium is just weeks away and rumours of a complete technological meltdown have guards and prisoners on edge. As violence simmers, tensions ignite, and Lee' s hopes of a quick mission disintegrate. Going undercover in a prison full of killers is his most dangerous assignment yet.
While They All Watched
The small town of Roberta on the Lake, Michigan is shaken to its core when a group of former high school baseball players are murdered one by one. One of the team members, Oscar, who has since moved back to his birth country of Australia, returns to his blended family with his sister Clementine to mourn the loss of his best friend, Jack—the first murder victim, beaten to death in his private study with his own baseball bat, Definitely a crime of passion—and definitely someone Jack considered a friend, as only friends were invited inside his study.
But who would want Jack dead? His efforts to develop and resuscitate the failing town of Roberta were generally appreciated by his fellow citizens, and he had no enemies to speak of. And what will his loss mean for the town's future? As other team members begin dying, Oscar and Clem channel their grief and fear into assisting their half-brother Ben, the sheriff, with the investigation before the killer gets around to striking Oscar out—permanently.
While You Were Screaming
From the #1 bestselling author of How to Kill a Guy in Ten Dates comes a swoony killer romance in which a sinister couples retreat results in cult chaos – for fans of Grady Hendrix and Brynne Weaver.
Filmmaker Laurie Hamilton knows a red flag when she sees one, and Kindred Souls sets off every alarm. The organisation claims to counsel couples for a steep price, but what's their real deal? Is it a scam … or a cult?
On a hunch that might get her killed, Laurie heads undercover with Connor Kincaid – a dangerously handsome podcaster and the one man she swore she’d never see again. Posing as the perfect match, they infiltrate a Kindred Souls retreat run by Cardinal, the enigmatic leader whose eerie charisma and devoted followers suggest there’s far more going on than relationship counselling.
Once inside, there’s no leaving. Surrounded by couples desperate to prove they’re soulmates, Laurie and Connor quickly realise the retreat isn’t about finding love – it’s about deciding who deserves it.
When things go from creepy to deadly, Laurie must decide who she can trust. Getting out alive is one thing, but what if she starts to grow feelings for the man she’s pretending to love? Urgh.
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