This listing shows posts that went onto AustCrimeFiction.org in the last 14 days. Sorted into post type groups - Blogs (Updates), Books, Reviews.

 

 

For years the boglands of Northern Europe have given up bodies of the long-deceased. Bodies that are thousands of years old, uncannily preserved. Bodies with strange injuries that suggest ritual torture and human sacrifice.

When a corpse is found in a bog in Galway, Cormac Reilly assumes the find is historical. But closer examination reveals a more recent story. The dead man is Thaddeus Grey, a local secondary school principal who disappeared two years prior.

Silence protects the victims… And the killer

When the dismembered body of a headmaster is found on the derelict site of a former school in Sheffield, DI Diana Walker finds herself chasing shadows.

Faced with missing teachers, unreported crimes and silent witnesses, Diana is running out of leads. Her colleagues insist this is just another instance of gang violence, but Diana knows there’s something more. Something everyone’s too scared to talk about.

On a cold winter evening in a secluded fjord in Iceland, a neighbour visits the house of a family that has not been seen in a week. No one comes to the door when he knocks. After breaking down the back door, his worst fears are realised. Their home is now an horrific crime scene.

A beautiful landscape…

It began as the project of a lifetime – a group of archaeologists, uncovering the remains of a Roman settlement on a beautiful hill in the glorious English countryside.

A looming threat…

But, the idyll is shattered when they begin receiving threatening letters. Former city detective Jake Jackson, now enjoying a quieter life in the local village, is pulled in to investigate.

A killer closing in…

A REMOTE HOTEL. FIVE GUESTS. ONE MURDER.

During a broiling heatwave, the inner circle of a high-profile charity attend a critical meeting at White Ash Ridge, a small hotel nestled in the Australian wilderness.

As the temperature rises, a body is found lying in the thick bush, bludgeoned to death. 

One of the four remaining guests is a murderer - but who, and why, is a mystery.

Detective Dana Russo knows the national spotlight will be sharply focused on the case.

We all hold lost recipes in our hearts. A very special restaurant in Kyoto helps find them . . .

Tucked away down a Kyoto backstreet lies the extraordinary Kamogawa Diner, run by Chef Nagare and his daughter, Koishi. The father-daughter duo have reinvented themselves as “food detectives,” offering a service that goes beyond cooking mouth-watering meals. Through their culinary sleuthing, they revive lost recipes and rekindle forgotten memories.

High on a hill above the small Victorian town of Carrabeen, 300 wind turbines constantly spin.

Except one is now deadly still – a body hanging from its huge white blade.

Detective Sergeants Belinda Burney and Will Lovell are shocked to discover the dead man is Geordie Pritchard, a rich local philanthropist and owner of the wind energy farm.

Suicide at first seems the likely explanation, until Geordie’s widow Lucinda insists her husband was murdered – and she has the death threats to prove it.

A missing violinist. A rising flood. A race against time. Intrigue, music and danger collide in Whisky Valley.

After nearly being murdered last year, Rose McHugh battles anxiety as she uses her investigative skills to find her son's best friend, a famous violinist who is missing along with his priceless violin.

As floodwaters rise, Rose uncovers secrets and lies among the missing man's fellow musicians, as well as their patron and her enigmatic psychologist husband.

The Heads was once a small village on the NSW north coast. Now it's a large village with a lot of action below the surface. A shipment of coke, a crime squad investigation and a drug overdose keeps the local sergeant pretty busy.

Someone is preying on the women of The Heads. And what does the discovery of buried roosters in the forest mean to a young boy traumatised by the death of his mother?

Will Sergeant William Jarrett uncover what is really going on or will it all remain hidden?

The sound hits them, a shock wave … glass smashing ... Somewhere a woman screams. A second explosion, and Martin looks towards the hall, what's left of it, flames roaring and smoke pouring skywards.

Someone is targeting Martin Scarsden. They bomb his book launch and shoot up his hometown.

Fleeing for his life, he learns that nowhere is safe, not even the outback. The killers are closing in and it's all he can do to survive.

But who wants to kill him and why? Can he discover their deadly motives and turn the tables?

“The nights aren’t too cold yet, lucky thing. Otherwise we’d be having a different conversation.”

Jessica Mowbrie, beaten and dumped in the bush like a sack of garbage and lying comatose in a hospital bed: lucky to be alive.

Lorraine Henry doesn’t think Jess is so lucky. She thinks whoever hurt her needs to be hunted down. But the Masterton police are isolated and underresourced, and to be honest, even though Lorraine works for them, she thinks they’re a bit hopeless.

‘If you know where to look, kiddo, the world is full of magic and monsters.’

Six-year-old Henry believes his life is a fairytale. He’s a Star Prince, his mum is a Star Queen and they’re hiding from Henry’s father, the mysterious ‘Wolf King’.

On the morning of her granddaughter’s first day of school, DI Nyree Bradshaw receives a chilling call: there’s been a double homicide on a private island in the Far North. One victim is the woman who inherited the island over her two brothers. The other victim is unknown.

As Nyree and her team begin their investigation into the murky labyrinth of greed, betrayal and bitter disputes that surround the ownership of the island, they make a shocking discovery: a search of the vicinity unearths the remains of a child who vanished twenty years before.

Like A Bullet, Andrew Cartmel

LIKE A BULLET is the third novel in The Paperback Sleuth series from author Andrew Cartmel, also known for his Vinyl Detective Series. Having now read one from each of these, the overriding aspect of these novels is a slightly over the top humour that is going to be perfect for some readers. And confuse and possibly annoy the hell out of others.

The Forsaken, Matt Rogers

Sitting down to read THE FORSAKEN (late to the party as usual), wasn't at all sure what to expect. The blurb explains that for ten years, Logan Booth, served as a contract killer for the CIA, never knowing that was what he was doing. Finding out he wasn't a rogue hitman for a band of vigilantes, but rather a means by which governments of the USA furthered their own interests is .. well it's a lot. Starting out reading a book about somebody who is fine with the killing bit, but very particular about the motivation element is something to think about.

The Freezer, Kim Hunt

The third Cal Nyx novel, THE FREEZER, would possibly work as a standalone, but the connections between this and the second novel, THE QUARRY in particular, make the characters here make a lot more sense. Nyx and her partner, DI Liz Scobie, her cousin Dif, and boarder Spike (complicated) are a great group of real feeling people and there's a backstory to how they all got here, together. 

Caught in the Act, Shane Jenek aka Courtney Act

I listened to this audio book, written and then narrated by Shane Jenek mostly because it had been on my to do list for ages, and then the 2025 Eurovision broadcast reminded me how much I enjoy watching and listening to Courtney Act and I just knew there had to be more to the story of how a young boy, raised in the suburbs of Brisbane went from realising he wasn't the same as other little boys, to become the performer she is today.