#CurrentlyReading
#NextUp
Dark Desert Road by Tim Ayliffe (where does the time go)
The Vanishing Place by Zoe Rankin (2026 Ngaio's submission list & another that's been languishing)
What You Don't Know by Sandi Wallace (overdue!)
Bang! by Taliyah Stone (sigh very overdue!)
The Girl from Sarajevo by Stef Harris (another from the 2026 Ngaio's list)
Like Follow Die, Ashley Kalagian Blunt
Old Games
Morally flexible best mates and private investigators Alice and Teddy pride themselves on fixing every kind of mess imaginable, no questions asked. So, when they're tasked with locating the recently-stolen ashes of long-dead celebrity tennis player Ashley “Perry” Perrineau, it should be a routine job.
But it quickly becomes clear that everyone who knew Perry is keeping his accountant despises Perry's widower; the sculptor of his statue is hiding something in her studio; his ex-doubles partner is a compulsive liar; and his mother is obsessed with preserving his legacy and her image at all costs.
Alice and Teddy will need to travel up and down Melbourne’s Mornington Peninsula – all while avoiding more than one person on their tail – to uncover the truth and keep the body count from rising. But will they and the people they love survive what they find?
The Vanishing Place
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.
What horrors has she left behind in the bush? Who will come looking for her? And what secrets are about to come to light?
Dark Desert Road
A fugitive sister. A dangerous father. A terror cell hiding in plain sight.
Kit McCarthy hasn't seen her identical twin sister, Billie, in more than a decade.
The sisters don't see eye to eye, which is understandable, considering Kit's a police officer and Billie followed their violent father into a life of crime.
Kit is no angel. Burnt out by years working in child protection, she has been accused of using excessive force in the arrest of a violent drunk. Kit has just been ordered to take time off work when she gets a frantic message from Billie, telling her she has a young son and that somebody is trying to kill her.
And then Billie disappears.
Determined to find her estranged sister, Kit's only lead comes after visiting their father in prison. Malcolm McCarthy claims Billie married a former United States Marine and has been living with a group of sovereign citizens in the desert country of the New South Wales Riverina.
Kit's journey to find Billie takes her through shuttered towns destroyed by drought, where everybody owns guns, nobody talks to cops, and people get lost for a reason.
Out here a war is brewing between a ruthless bikie gang and a separatist community that is re-engaging with society in the most violent way.
Kit will risk everything to find her sister and the nephew she never knew she had.
What You Don't Know
Home on a secluded island should be safe… but isn’t.
Tess and Joe are living the dream on Wyeebo Island. She writes children’s mystery books and loves having her husband home on weekends. He has it all, a travelling job he excels in and a wife he adores.
But how well do they really know who they’re married to?
A prowler in Tess’s neighbourhood triggers trauma over her best friend’s unsolved death – and dread of history repeating. Tess does odd things she can’t remember, and Joe acts cagey. They each have secrets that converge with the abduction of a young local woman.
Who can they trust when they don’t trust each other, or themselves? With nobody and nowhere safe, can Tess stop what she doesn’t understand... or will somebody else die because of her?
Bang!
Perth, 1981.
Brothel madam Destiny Purcell controlled half the city's vice trade—until someone executed her on a golf course in the rain.
The police blame a junkie. Case closed.
For fans of Snowtown, James Ellroy, and Underbelly, BANG! delivers brutal Australian noir where corrupt cops, motorcycle clubs, and a desperate young killer collide in 1980s Perth—Australia's most isolated city, with its own rules and its own justice.
But in a city where the Purple Circle controls everything from shadows, where motorcycle clubs enforce for the powerful, and where sin is managed—not outlawed—nothing is ever that simple.
Someone wanted her dead. The wrong man took the fall.
Rain washes away evidence. It doesn't wash away guilt.
The Girl from Sarajevo
THE GIRL FROM SARAJEVO
Young and beautiful immigrant Katia will do anything to become a novelist. When she encounters her neighbour, a once famous Croatian author, she embarks on an audacious plan to represent Dragan’s new novel as her own. Weaponising her sexuality, she enters into a cynical twisted affair with the aging wordsmith. But Dragan holds a dangerous secret that may destroy them both.
THE OTHER JASMINE
Mail order bride Wong Ji Li travelled all the way from Ningbo China to marry a wealthy man, only to find herself a virtual sex slave, imprisoned on a derelict farm. Her new husband Darryl is a giant man-child still under the thumb of his powerful mother. Wong Ji Li discovers she is not Darryl’s first victim. She must find the courage to escape her predicament or face the same fate as the other Jasmine.
Like, Follow, Die
Corinne Gray’s life is falling apart. When homicide detective Kyle Nazarian unexpectedly knocks on her door on a rainy morning, she knows why. He wants to talk about her son, Ben.
An average teen in Sydney’s eastern suburbs, Ben is dating his first girlfriend and trying to find an after-school job. But as his luck sours, he’s increasingly drawn into shadowy corners of the internet.
This is Corinne’s chance to finally explain how her sweet-natured child, who loved history and dreamed of swimming for Olympic gold, grew up to do the unthinkable. What really happened to Ben? And could anyone have prevented it?
Kyle, meanwhile, is grappling with his own crisis both at home and at work. Torn between his duties and a growing sympathy for Corinne, Kyle must decide how far he’s willing to go in his pursuit of justice.
Bella Donna
SECRETS ARE THE DEADLIEST POISON
Eustacia Rose is done with murder cases. She's ready to settle down with her partner, Matilde, and focus on her work at the university. To live a normal life.
But then along comes a case she can't resist investigating - because this time, the murder victim was poisoned with hemlock, one of the plants stolen from Eustacia's illicit garden of poisonous plants. And Eustacia is not the only one desperate to retrieve her lost the beguiling trader of rare plants, Zsa Zsa, and rival university professor Hutchins are on the trail, too, not to mention the dangerous criminal gang determined to keep hold of the lethal plants.
The stakes are higher than ever for Eustacia. Because if she cannot save her plants in time, there will be more deaths - and this time, the blood will be on her hands . . .
Add comment