This listing shows posts that went onto AustCrimeFiction.org in the last 14 days. Sorted into post type groups - Blogs (Updates), Books, Reviews.
An unnamed narrator grows up overshadowed by her unconventional mother, an ex-Jehovah’s witness and former television star with an inferiority complex. Her father is the head of a psychiatric institution, whose only form of parenting is to offer his daughter the same life advice he dispenses to his patients. Reserved and somewhat aloof, he chooses not to intervene when his wife obsesses about charisma, calorie counting, and turning their daughter into a child prodigy.
Millions have been entertained by the viral video of a man being arrested after a ‘succulent Chinese meal’. But when Mark Dapin investigated, it emerged that this man's story went to the heart of the Australian underworld. A true crime cult classic in the making.
In the quiet wine-growing town of Martinborough, Detective Senior Sergeant Kate Sutton is called to investigate the murder of respected local physician Dr. Geoffrey Scott. Found dead in his own garden, the doctor's death sends ripples of unease through the close-knit community.
Recently divorced and still settling into her new home, Kate methodically begins to piece together the puzzle. As the investigation deepens, she discovers unexpected connections to the three-year-old disappearance of a young French woman—a case that has lingered unresolved in her career.
Victim or murderer . . .
Can she discover the truth?
On a misty autumn afternoon, a woman covered in blood clutching a baseball bat walks silently into a London police station. The two officers assigned to her case are DI Leah Hutch and DS Benjamin Randle.
Before Shetland and Vera, Ann Cleeves wrote the Inspector Ramsay series featuring a talented, brilliant detective—now available for the first time in the US.
News of the murder came to Inspector Stephen Ramsay early on Monday isolated farmer Ernie Bowles was found lying on his kitchen floor, gruesomely strangled.
A white-knuckle ride into a nightmarish outback setting, where a man searching for mercy encounters a town baying for violent vengeance. A pulse-pounding literary thriller with a stunning final twist.
Lake Herrod, a once-thriving community, now lies in the shadow of a nearly dry lake. The town, like the water, is evaporating and its residents are left clinging to what little remains.
When Aaron Love discovers a fresh corpse near the cracked lakebed – along with evidence his missing father is alive and linked to a web of organised crime – he is thrust into a world of deception, injustice and betrayal. With the town on the brink of collapse, Aaron and a haunted detective, Martyn Kravets, uncover a web of conspiracy that reaches far beyond the small community.
A heart-pounding, high-stakes, high-adrenalin relentless blast of an action-packed thriller, from Gabriel Bergmoser. the bestselling author of The Hunted and The Caretaker.
Who's got time to think about murder when there's a wedding to plan?
It’s been a quiet year for the Thursday Murder Club. Joyce is busy with table plans and first dances. Elizabeth is grieving. Ron is dealing with family troubles, and Ibrahim is still providing therapy to his favourite criminal.
Ten suspects. Ten heists. A puzzle only Ernest Cunningham can solve.
I’ve spent the last few years solving murders. But a bank heist is a new one, even for me. I’ve never been a hostage before.
The doors are chained shut. No one in or out. Which means that when someone in the bank is murdered, hostages become suspects.
A country town, a brutal murder, a shameful past, a reckoning to come... The injustices of the past and dangers of the present envelop Aboriginal policewoman Renee Taylor, when her unwilling return to the small outback town of her childhood plunges her into the investigation of a brutal murder.
Renee Taylor is planning to stay the minimum amount of time in her remote hometown - only as long as her mum needs her, then she is fleeing back to her real life in Brisbane.
In Norway's frozen north, it's not just secrets that are buried…
When nineteen-year-old Iselin Hanssen disappears during a run in a popular hiking area in Bodø, Northern Norway, suspicion quickly falls on her boyfriend. For investigator Jakob Weber, the case seems clear-cut, almost unexceptional, even though there is some suggestion that Iselin lived parts of her life beneath the radar of both family and friends.
On the remote West Coast of the South Island, vast forests stretch out between mountain ranges and rugged beaches. There, in the small town of Koraha, not a lot happens - until a young girl with blood on her hands walks out of the bush and into the local store, collapsing to the floor.
She can't - or won't - speak to anyone. It's the town's sole policeman who recognises her face. She looks exactly like a local girl who disappeared twenty years ago. She has the same red hair. The same green eyes.
The third book in The Tea Ladies Mystery Series, sees Hazel, Betty and Irene take on one of their most dangerous challenges yet, with a real threat to Hazel's life on more than one occasion, Betty finding herself naked in front of a lot of strangers, and Irene hoicking a Molotov Cocktail straight back to where it came from.
This was a happenstance discovery in the libraries audio listing, which I jumped at the chance of listening to. The narrator, Akira Matsumoto, has a very easy to listen to voice, and to hear the correct pronunciation of the Japanese words an absolute pleasure and an education.
Whilst THE THRILL OF IT is a work of fiction, it is, as explained in the Author's Note, inspired and informed by the real-life brutal slayings of six older women on Sydney's North Shore by a man who came to be known as the Granny Killer (and god knows that's such a disrespectful moniker it's hard to know where to start). There is also a clear reference to the murder of the well-known Sydney identity, Florence Broadhurst. The author goes onto explain:
Years (sadly) ago now I read the first book by Femi Kayode, LIGHTSEEKERS, and loved it. Partly because it was very much a whydunnit and partly because the central character, acclaimed investigative psychologist, Philip Taiwo is such an interesting take on an investigator. Having lived most of his life in the US, he's now in Nigeria, with his family, reconnecting with his families origins, and, to be frank, looking for somewhere that everyone else looks like them.
The second book in the historical series featuring Sergeant Akai Singh, A SHIPWRECK IN FIJI follows on from A DISAPPEARANCE IN FIJI. This series makes for particularly interesting reading if you're aware of the motivation behind the books, which Rao spells out in her author's notes. In this book she comments:
Firstly apologies. The last newsletter was back in March, and since then things have been ... well chaotic. So there's some news to be caught up with.
Firstly some releases you might want to keep an eye out for (click on the cover images for the book details):
RELEASE DATE: 29/5/2025: Aside from this being a really interesting cover design, a locked room mystery on a cruise ship set in 1925.