Death is just a close shave away.
It is February 1918. Somewhere in the bayside suburbs of Melbourne, the Death Mask Murderer is lurking, engaged in a ritualistic killing spree: shaving the heads of young women, strangling them and creating a gruesome...Read more
A summer of relentless heat. A local surfer named Ray Carlson is found dead in a house not far from Portsea back beach. There’s a silver-handled kitchen knife deep in his chest, and blood everywhere.
Detective Sergeant Zoe Mayer is scarcely back from extended leave, and still...Read more
She hasn't seen her brother in years. Now, he's dead.
When Judi Westerholme finds out her estranged brother has been murdered, she assumes it's connected to his long term drug addiction. Returning home, she is shocked to discover he had been clean for years,...Read more
‘He didn’t have to be normal, the boy realised. He just had to pretend.’
It’s winter in Melbourne and Detective Emmett Corban is starting to regret his promotion to head of the Missing Persons Unit, as the routine reports pile up on his desk.
So when...Read more
If only the killings had stopped at two. The police are desperate to come to grips with an extraordinary and disquieting upsurge of violence. For Constable Helen Lord, it is an opportunity to make her mark in a male-dominated world where she is patronised as a novelty. For Detective Joe...Read more
The young detectives call Alan Auhl a retread, but that doesn’t faze him. He does things his own way—and gets results.
He still lives with his ex-wife, off and on, in a big house full of random boarders and hard-luck stories. And he’s still a cop, even though he retired from...Read more
Caleb Zelic, profoundly deaf since early childhood, has always lived on the outside - watching, picking up telltale signs people hide in a smile, a cough, a kiss. When a childhood friend is murdered, a sense of guilt and a determination to prove his own innocence sends Caleb on a hunt for...Read more
What happens when the keynote at an important arts festival is found dead? Join Brendan O’Leary who’s trying hard to keep up with all that’s changing in his life and Ange Micelli, fourth daughter of Italian migrants, who’s fit, fiery and ready to go. Together they make a formidable team in...Read more
Meet Sam Chauvel, private investigator. He's tough. He's perceptive. He's sometimes easily confused.
He's looking for Wil Dreamsworth, an ex-pop star last seen on Countdown in 1980. With a little help from his friends and occasionally helpful strangers, Sam is scouring the...Read more
Caught in a web of complex family ties, Marlo, Melbourne-based professional woman cricketer, is determined to find out if her aunt's death was suicide, or murder. A new crime thriller from the author of "The Blessing File".Read more
The first of Phryne's adventures from Australia's most elegant and irrepressible sleuth. The London season is in full fling at the end of the 1920s, but the Honourable Phryne Fisher - she of the green-grey eyes, diamant garters and outfits that should not be sprung suddenly on those of...Read more
Givento over-indulgence in sex, smoked salmon on...Read more
Three housemates.
One dead, one missing and one accused of murder.
Dubbed the Housemate Homicide, it's a mystery that has baffled Australians for almost a decade.
Melbourne-based journalist Olive Groves worked on the story as a junior reporter and became...Read more
The fourth in Dark Passage’s reissue series of crime mysteries by June Wright, The Devil’s Caress , originally published in 1952, is an tense psychological thriller set on the wild southern coast of the Mornington Peninsula, outside Melbourne.Read more
Prince of spin and life of the party, Baz King, is missing. Nine years ago, at an innocent summer barbecue in Melbourne, everything imploded. For the Kings and the four other young families there that fateful day marriages fractured, friendships crumbled and lives were upended.
...Read more
Melbourne, 1868. When dazzling theatre star Marie St Denis dies in the arms of her best friend, fellow actress Lola Sanchez, everyone believes it was suicide by laudanum overdose. Everyone except Lola. On the brink of stardom herself, she risks everything by embarking on a...Read more
The author of the bestselling The Hunted returns with another unmissable, white-knuckle, gritty urban suspense thriller: think Jack Reacher meets John Wick in a high-octane, high-speed chase on the dark streets of Melbourne.
A young woman is hiding out in a sleepy...Read more
'One rainy Friday evening in the winter of 1993, a taxi swept through the streets of East Melbourne, on its way from the city to Richmond. That year was one of the few remaining when a great deal was known of the world, but not yet so much that the world had become over-known. Small gaps...Read more
A must-read biography of an enigmatic personality who helped shape early Melbourne
Madame Brussels, the most legendary brothel keeper in nineteenth-century Melbourne, is still remembered and celebrated today. But until now, little has been known about Caroline Hodgson, the...Read more
'Silvester is the doyen of Australian true crime. No one else comes close.' Nick McKenzie
From madmen to matriarchs, stooges to heroes, eye-watering bungles to sweet justice - strap yourself in for a masterclass in storytelling from Australia's most formidable crime...Read more
John Silvester has been reporting on crime from the cop stations, courthouses, back alleys and gangster mansions of Melbourne for forty years. His contact book is a who's who of both sides of criminal justice, and the shadowy worlds between. He is the trusted confidante of cops, criminals,...Read more
I met my husband on the same day I committed my very last murder. There's a joke in there somewhere, about ending two men's lives.'
Olivia Hodges used to do horrible things - back when she worked for a Spanish crime syndicate - but she fled that life and moved home to Australia...Read more
Where does the adventure end . . .
and the nightmare begin?
Frank owns a service station on a little-used highway. His granddaughter, Allie, is sent to stay with him for the summer, but they don't talk a lot.
Simon is a...Read more
‘You’re a politician, a public figure. What on earth were you thinking?’
Up-and-coming junior minister Gregory Buchanan has had a portrait painted of himself by the acclaimed artist Sophie White — a painting she intends to enter in this year’s Archibald Prize....Read more
As the third wave of the virus hits, all inhabitants of Melbourne are given until 8pm to get to their homes. Wherever they are when the curfew hits, they must live for four weeks and stay within a 5km radius. When Lou’s son Samuel doesn’t arrive home by nightfall she begins to panic....Read more
The summer of 1966–7. Hal and his little brother have just come to live in Moorabool. They’re exploring the creek near their new home when they find the body of a dog.
Not just dead, but killed.
Not just killed, but horribly maimed.
Constable Mick...Read more
An unsolved murder takes one of Australia’s foremost writers of non-fiction into the 1930s Bohemian demi-monde, exploring the fate of a talented young woman trying to make her way in that artistic, sexualised, ‘liberated’ world.
As enigmatic in life as in death, Mollie Dean was...Read more
1943 is a dangerous time to fall in love...
In wartime Melbourne loose lips sink ships, so when Australian Women's Army sergeant Stella Aldridge overhears soldiers whispering about a revenge killing, she follows her instincts to investigate, despite finding herself drawn to one...Read more
‘The verdict in the Walsh Street trial was all four not guilty. Repeat not guilty. All units are warned - keep yourselves under control.'
Radio newsflash message to all State police
The killings called ‘Walsh Street’ arose when police and...Read more
Just a little way down Collins Street, beside Henry Buck's, is a perpetually dark but sheltered laneway called Equitable Place. Here you'll find a number of places to eat and drink. Settle yourself in the window of one, shut your eyes, and picture this scene of yore ...In this much-loved...Read more