Martha Elliott is a clever, determinedly single, borderline anal retentive who lives with her family: a silent father, a mother who does not notice her, a sister who is inveterately stoned, and a younger brother who makes Martha want, in her own words, 'to disembowel him'. She's not too...Read more
A suspected serial killer stalks the ranks of the local U3A branch.Read more
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"The sun had set away behind Willamstown, but the red glow was still there, and lay like a shadow of blood on the placid waters of our bay."
Murder, love, courage. This triptych of nineteenth-century thrillers by Mary Helena Fortune, writing as Waif Wander, encompasses colonial...Read more
Wellington. The land dips and rolls, the wind has a life of its own. Dig a little deeper and the city is unforgiving and unrepentant. Forget the politicians, they’re poor amateurs in deception and crime.
It’s Saturday night down on the wharf. Celebrations are in full swing for...Read more
''For I prefer beauty always a little soured. When it comes to me as a spoonful of syrup, I spit it out.''
Gilbert Hand hasn't been the same since his wife died. He's moved to a dull but respectable hotel where silence seems to brood in the hall and stairway. In a secret drawer...Read more
Former Navy Lieutenant Commander and MMA instructor David Johnson has it all: an amazing wife, three beautiful kids and a great job. He’s the man who can handle anything, and anyone – until his wife Chrissie is introduced to methamphetamine at a friend’s New Year's Eve party. Slowly but...Read more
A forgotten manuscript threatens to unravel the past …
Fresnes Prison, 1940: Margot Bisset, a former maid from the Riviera, finds herself in a prison cell with writer and French Resistance fighter, Josephine Murant. Together, they are transferred to a work camp in Germany,...Read more
Paul is a graphic designer with a history that has included organising events on the London rave scene and supplying recreational drugs across the capital. Disillusioned by the way the scene has been taken over by organised crime, he turns his back on it and, after a few years working for a...Read more
Out of place at boarding school, scholarship girl Evelyn Varley realises that the only way for her to fit in is to be like everyone else. She hides her true self and what she really thinks behind the manners and attitudes of those around her. By the time she graduates from Oxford University...Read more
Deep red scars. Cold dark secrets . . .
In the cold, wet summer of 1960, 11-year-old Joy Henderson lives in constant fear of her father. She tries to make him happy but, as he keeps reminding her, she is nothing but a filthy sinner destined for Hell . . .Yet, decades...Read more
When a gambling debt puts him between a rock and a swim in the Hudson with concrete shoes, Smithy has no choice but to take the worst job imaginable. The gig – as prey in leprechaun hunt for a bunch of Wallstreet jerks – goes as badly as it sounds. He could leave it there and write it off...Read more
A psychological thriller that will shock you to the core.
Headstrong and independent, Rita Saunders is a successful hairdresser by day and a busy brothel madam by night. The only thing missing from her life is the love of a good woman.
Istvan Ziegler is a Hungarian...Read more
In this propulsive, twist-filled, and haunting psychological suspense debut perfect for fans of Sharp Objects and Room, a seventeen-year-old girl struggles to remember the role she played on the night her life changed forever.
For the past two weeks, seventeen-...Read more
Callum Haffenden swore he'd never return to Granite Creek. But, thirty years after a life-shattering accident, he's thrust back into the clutches of Far North Queensland and a local legend he worked hard to forget.
When a man goes missing in the rainforest, the past begins to...Read more
Detective Constable Angus MacVicar has just landed his dream job – transferred out of uniform and assigned to Oldcastle’s biggest ongoing murder Operation Telegram, hunting the 'Fortnight Killer'.
Every two weeks another couple is targeted. One victim is left at the scene, their...Read more
Straddling old world and new, Mila and the Bone Man explores the corrosive power of guilt, the solace to be found in the natural world, and our capacity to heal as well as hurt.
Set in the forest in northern New Zealand, Mila is a young woman descended from healers. A family...Read more
Poor Little Crick, he is a penniless orphan cast upon the cruel world of 19th Century Kirkshire, with the face – no less – of a pretty girl. Yet he is cunning, he has a fire in his belly, and he has the wiles to become anyone he a swooning lady in a drawing room, a cheeky harlot in a...Read more
John Lacey's lust for power and gold brings him riches and influence beyond his wildest dreams. Only he knows the terrible crime he committed to attain that wealth. Years later, as Lacey ruthlessly presides over the town he has built and named after himself, no one has the courage to...Read more
Jane is a contact tracer. She has to call a lot of people and some of them don’t want to talk. Various reasons—tax or immigration issues, infidelity. Domestic abuse.
Jane knows all about that. She and her daughter Tara have spent years in hiding from Tara’s manipulative and...Read more
After selling his start-up business, Sam has the kind of money only dreams are made of. Young, and married to the love of his life, it's time for Sam to enjoy his good fortune.
That is, until Sam's Chief Financial Officer is taken hostage by a ruthless criminal demanding a...Read more
Afghanistan 1982, a botched CIA operation leaves a young Ali without a family, setting him on an unpredictable path for retribution. What follows is his lifelong, meticulously planned quest for vengeance, from Afghanistan across the globe to New York. Along the way he makes enemies in a...Read more
In Winstone’s imagination, the Kid and his partner ride through the Wild West on the trail of their quarry. In Winstone’s actual life, he’s had to abandon his ‘partner’ and is hiding out in the tough landscape of Central Otago.
What has this boy run from, and how will the...Read more
Edwina’s death is brutal, a swift and silent killer who leaves no clues. Her murder seems unsolvable until a casual comment sends Inspector Alex Cameron and his seasoned team trawling through the dead woman’s childhood.
Raised in a poverty-scarred part of Auckland, Edwina was a...Read more
A skeleton is unearthed in a suburban Auckland backyard. A woman disappears. A teenager is abandoned.
These events change the trajectory of Tova Tan's life, which she is slowly rebuilding after her involvement in a traumatic kidnapping. Reluctantly, she agrees to look after the...Read more
You can't escape the desert. You can't escape Sundial.
Rob fears for her daughters. For Callie, who collects tiny bones and whispers to imaginary friends. For Annie, because she fears what Callie might do to her. Rob sees a darkness in Callie, one that reminds her of the family...Read more
The third collection in the Crimes for a Summer Christmas series, featuring stories by 14 Australian writers, including Elizabeth Jolley, Marion Halligan, Peter Corris, Brian Castro, Marele Day and Jean Bedford.
Life in the safe suburbs of Christchurch isn't dangerous enough for Marty. He needs excitement in punk, protest, politics and crackpipes. Marty soon finds Mona, a teenage runaway living in a flophouse of skinheads and goths. The two of them live for drugs and dodgy deals but they are...Read more
How well do you really know your family?
Emma Matheson is a happily married woman—so happy that she's organised a surprise party for her husband on the night of their wedding anniversary.
When Nathan doesn't turn up to the party, Emma knows something...Read more
Sandy Barrett's hiking escapades were usually uneventful and relaxing, until the day she risked her life saving a trapped seagull and tumbled down a 100 metre cliff. After tree branches miraculously broke her fall, her body lay battered on a rocky ledge. A greater horror lay await to...Read more
A novel about family secrets and discovery of a long-ago crime. Hilda is a reclusive single woman who lives on the North Kent marshes with her rescue cats. One day she has a visit from a young woman called Nicky, who claims to be her half-sister, the "love child" of Hilda's father who has...Read more