Better Left Dead

The image of the book cover for Better Left Dead by Catherine Lea includes the tagline ' Secrets Abound and No One's Telling the Full Story' and the notation 'A DI Nyree Bradshaw Novel.' The image is of a striking pink, purple and yellow sky over a beach that has scrubby trees and bushes right up to the edge. The tide is out and the water is reflecting the colours of the sky.

DI Nyree Bradshaw and her team have their work cut out for them once again. Local woman Lizzy Bean has been found dead, garrotted with a piece of wire. Lizzy's property, a 1970s beach house overlooking a pristine Northland bay, is overflowing with rubbish. Inside, the house is even worse....Read more

Tags: 

The Cryptic Clue

The book cover for The Cryptic Clue by Amanda Hampson includes the tagline 'Look who's back in hot water' highlighted by a magnifying glass which is making the look and in hot larger in size. The image is a white background with an orange border. To the left there's a dressmaker's dummy with a geometric shift dress on it. Out of a low down pocket on the front of the dress there's a light stick of explosive.

Look who's back in hot water! The highly anticipated new novel in The Tea Ladies cosy crime series, a runaway bestseller of the year. Available for pre-order now!

Welcome back to Zig Zag Lane in the heart of Sydney's rag-trade district, where our intrepid tea ladies, Hazel, Betty...Read more

I Have Sinned

The book cover for I Have Sinned by Caimh McDonnell (near as I can get it Caimh is pronounced KEE-va or KWEE-va).

The image has a red and black background with panels at the bottom that look sort of like windows. There's the silhouette of a male figure, with a white dog collar showing, an arm holding a gun, and a bridge (?The Golden Gate Bridge - not sure). The title of the book in centre at the top in a large, uneven font.

Bunny McGarry is a man on a mission. He left behind his life in Ireland to go to New York to find the woman he loves, who happens to have a lot of very dangerous people looking for her. The good news is that they don’t know where she is, the bad news is that Bunny doesn’t either and the...Read more

Death in a Lonely Place

The book cover for Death In A Lonely Place by Stig Abell includes the tagline 'In a quiet village, secrets stir ...'

The image is of a body of still water, deep blue and mauve reflecting the sky above. There's a leafless tree in the middle of the water with birds flying around it, and across the other side there are a row of low purple coloured hills.

In a quiet village, a storm is brewing. Detective Jake Jackson left London for a quiet life in Caelum Parvum. The idyllic country village offers the peace he craves—tending to his chickens, swimming in his lake, and spending long, lazy evenings with his new love, Livia. It’s the perfect...Read more

Everyone on this Train Is A Suspect

The book cover for Everyone on this Train is a Suspect by Benjamin Stevenson is a white background with a greyed out train line joining the words of the title:

Everyone - grey with a poison bottle with an orange label as the o
On this - grey with a wedgetail eagle in flight to the left, holding a burning twig in its talons
Train - large orange lettering with go fast echoes
Is A - grey letter slightly smaller
Suspect - grey lettering with the U showing signs of fire on the inside lines.

The Author's name is at the top of the book directly under the line 'The International Bestseller'

When the Australian Mystery Writers’ Society invited me to their crime-writing festival aboard the Ghan, the famous train between Darwin and Adelaide, I was hoping for some inspiration for my second book. Fiction, this time: I needed a break from real people killing each other. Obviously,...Read more

Faculty of Murder

Image of the book cover for Faculty of Murder. This time the nun is, again in full habit, with the cross around her neck and glasses on. She is standing in front of a building with a tower, and the sky is greenish whilst the building is brown. There's the stylised image of a girl with closed eyes and flowing hair in a greenish background at the bottom, looking for all the world like somebody who is floating.

Faculty of Murder is set at Brigid Moore Hall, a girls' hostel in the University of Melbourne, where "freshettes" are shocked by a new arrival, Judith Mornane, who announces that she intends to discover her sister's murderer. Her sister, Maureen, had mysteriously disappeared from the hostel...Read more

Poison at Penshaw Hall

The book cover of Poison at Penshaw Hall by G.B. Ralph has a mauve coloured map as the background with a pale green square in the middle and a sketch of a male goat with large horns at the right. There is a note at the bottom that says it's 'A Milverton Mystery'

Addison Harper is back, and with another dead body at his feet. Only this time, the entire town saw it happen.

Milverton is in the running for the Terrific Town Award, so a dramatic death at the opening ceremony is far from ideal. Addison had only been lending...Read more

Shadow City

The book cover of Shadow City by Natalie Conyer includes, in a yellow "sticker" the quote 'Tense, gritty and insightful' Emma Viskic.

The image is looking out from a dark space, probably under a bridge, towards a brightly lit night skyline with a couple of gulls flying across the sky. The title is at the top in white lettering, the author's name towards the bottom in yellow.

Sydney, The body of a young woman is found in Chinatown. She's been beaten, tortured - and tattooed with the image of a sun. Called to the scene, Sergeant Jackie Rose asks herself whether this was a drug murder, or something else. But before her investigation can get under...Read more

Tags: 

The Sentence is Death

The book cover of the audio version of The Sentence is Death by Anthony Horowitz is on a bright red background with an old style arch bridge across the top, with two male figures standing by the ornate railings. There is shrubbery at either end of the bridge and the book title and author's name are displayed over and around the bridge in very large lettering.

"You shouldn’t be here. It’s too late…"

These, heard over the phone, were the last recorded words of successful celebrity-divorce lawyer. Richard Pryce, found bludgeoned to death in his bachelor pad with a bottle of wine – a 1982 Chateau Lafite worth £3,000, to be precise....Read more

The In Crowd

The book cover for The In Crowd by Charlotte Vassell has the tagline 'Being In Is Everything. Being Out is Murder'

The image has a bright blue background with the outline of a two female figures from the head down. The one on the left is wearing a hat, the one on the right bare headed. They both have a long, dagger shaped earring, bright orange lipstick and a halter tie around their neck. There's a hint of a low backed top / dress that they are wearing which breaks out into a splash under and around the author's name at the bottom of the cover.

Early one morning, a men’s rowing team discovers a body floating face down in the Thames. Many years before, the chief executive of a clothing manufacturer walked off with a multi-million dollar corporate retirement fund and disappeared without a trace. Now, the discovery of this body has...Read more

Ace Post Mortem Twist

The book cover of Mirror Mirror who's The Killer? has a tagline of 'Wyld Enchantment Woods Cozy Mystery'. The image is a fantasy styled cartoonish wintery scene with a castle at the top, snow covered trees in the middle and a cat in the foreground. There's somebody off in the distant with their hair streaming out to the left, and pumpkins at the bottom. A candle stick is in the centre of the title which says just Post Mortem

Is Cassidy Turpin a crooked cop?

When Tomcat’s secret crush is arrested for murdering a co-worker, Ella and Tom only have 24 hours to clear Cassidy’s name before she is shipped off to the notorious Nottingham prison.
But with Tomcat determined to call the shots, will...Read more

Dark Arena

The book cover for Dark Arena by Jack Beaumont includes the quote 'Dark Arena is as real and as deeply disturbing as a world I once knew' Ant Middleton, former UK Special Forces and the tagline 'The Frenchman Returns'.

The image is of a man standing in a classic stance, holding a gun in his hands, one knee slightly bent, he's in shadow. In the background there's a snowy piece of ground with a few stubby trees and an elaborate building beyond, with minarets on the roof.

The Frenchman returns in Dark Arena, a super-charged espionage thriller from Jack Beaumont. When an agent of the Directorate-General for External Security (DGSE) is brutally murdered in front of his family, the "Company" swings into action, determined to track down the killers. Meanwhile,...Read more

Death Holds the Key

The image of the book cover for Death Holds the Key by Alexander Thorpe is a textured layout with the left hand side being the textured black outline of a man holding a book, a rosary with cross dangling from the same hand. On the right, against a slightly off white background is the outline of an image of a man in a hat, the texture over that image is made up of vines and leaves. At the bottom, over the top of the textured black there's an outline of a handgun, textured in the same way as the man in the hat. The title has a keyhole in place of the O in Holds, and is all in white, except for the KEY, which has the same texture again as the gun / hatted man.

When loathed landholder Fred O' Donnell is found dead in a locked room with a bullet in his chest, rookie Detective Hartley must seek help from a mysterious wanderer to solve the case. And it' s one where everyone, including his family, has a motive and a secret to keep.Featuring the...Read more

Resurrection

The book cover for Resurrection by Roger Simpson includes the tagline 'Who Do You Trust When You Can't Trust Yourself'.

The image is of a woman, back to the viewer walking towards a male figure shrouded in a hoodie, hands in his pockets. It's foggy with the hint of streetlights turning the fog around him vaguely purple in colour, off to his left are the blue tones of a brightly lit forecourt. There's a note at the bottom 'A Jane Halifax Novel'

Jane Halifax is back in a twisted story of betrayal, where the formidable forensic psychiatrist will discover that the only person you can trust is yourself. A near-fatal car accident left Jane Halifax in a coma, and when she wakes, she has no idea who she is …

Initially...Read more

Deccie Must Die

The book cover for Deccis Must Die by Caimh McDonnell (near as I can get it Caimh is pronounced KEE-va or KWEE-va).

The image has a red background with a large old fashioned style stand microphone surrounded by a white gun sight styled target. The title of the book in centre at the top in a large, uneven font.

Some people have no appreciation of the fundamentals of the fame game…

MCM Investigations are back! Although Brigit isn’t sure for how long. Money is tight, business is slow and her partner, Paul, has been temporarily crippled due to her attempts to be in two places at once; one...Read more

Dragon's Claw

The image of the book cover for Dragon's Claw by A.C. Edwards includes the tagline ' A Galahad Jones Thriller'.

The image is of the silhouette of a person in a heavy jacket, standing facing the viewer but his face is obscured. In the background is a brightly lit street with street signs in Chinese characters. Superimposed on the man's image is a woman jogging down a path lined by green ferns, she's moving away from the viewer.

A VIP Protection job goes wrong, the brutalised body of a young man is found in the jungle, a triad wants its $2.5 million back, a girl goes missing and a friend is murdered. Galahad Jones’ world is about to tilt.

When a simple VIP Protection job goes horribly...Read more

Chasing the Dragon

The image of the book cover for Chasing the Dragon by Mark Wightman includes the tagline ' A Betancourt Mystery '.

The image has a dark background with a bright red smokey looking cloud taking up most of the area, with a view of a bay with a lot of small boats moored on it at the bottom and the hint of a dark dragon's face in the centre, the title is superimposed over that in gold italic lettering. Directly below that is a golden long dragon.

Detective Inspector Betancourt of the Singapore Marine Police is first on the scene. Something doesn't quite add up. He finds out that the archaeologist, Richard Fulbright, was close to deciphering the previously-untranslatable script on a pre-colonial relic known as the Singapore Stone....Read more

The Glasgow Smile

The book cover for Glasgow Smile by Chris Stuart includes the tagline 'The Award Wining Author of For Reasons of Their Own' at the top of a mostly white cover which has a brick wall textured background, blending down to a black banner at the bottom the has the title of the book displayed on it in white lettering. In the centre of the wall there's a painted set of lips, right red in colour, leading out towards the right where they go out of shape and end up a red slash with black stitches across it. There's a woman in black jeans and a short leather jacket standing in front of the lips she has white hair and her arms are hanging loosely by her sides. There's crime scene tape behind here that goes all the way across the image.

Inside every person you think you know, there is someone you dont know. Contemporary crime thriller set in the grimy tangled innercity laneways in Melbourne.

In a grimy graffiti covered recess a woman is found stabbed and strangled. "why would anyone want to kill her, she was...Read more

Death Comes to Marlow

The book cover for Death Comes to Marlow by Robert Thorogood includes the tagline (in a red "sticker") 'A Marlow Murder Club Mystery' and a quote 'I love Thorogood's writing' Peter James. 

The cover is mostly white with the title in large lettering at the top, and a cartoonish view of a duck with only its belly and legs showing out of some blue water images (toes turned up in other words).

It’s been an enjoyable and murder-free time for Judith, Suzie and Becks – AKA the Marlow Murder Club – since the events of last year. The most exciting thing on the horizon is the upcoming wedding of Marlow grandee, Sir Peter Bailey, to his nurse, Jenny Page. Sir Peter is having a party at...Read more

The Darkest Sin

The image of the book cover for The Darkest Sin by D.V. Biship includes the tagline 'Florence, 1537. Murder on holy ground is ....' (immediately above the title).

The background is textured teal, the title in a gothic style black font that takes up the majority of the space, with birds flying to the right of it. Then the additional tagline 'Featuring Cesare Aldo'.

At the bottom there is a view of a city with a large, domed basically or church and a tower above a crowded building line.

Florence. Spring, 1537.

When Cesare Aldo investigates a report of intruders at a convent in the Renaissance city’s northern quarter, he enters a community divided by bitter rivalries and harbouring dark secrets.

His case becomes far more complicated when a naked man’s...Read more

1989

The book cover of 1989 by Val McDermid includes the taglines 'The Number One Sunday Times Bestseller', 'She'll Risk Anything for the Truth ....' and 'An Allie Burns Thriller'

The image is looking up onto a set of concrete steps with low walls either side. There is a tower in the distance and birds flying against a cloudy light grey sky.

In the new installment to her historical crime series that began with 1979, internationally bestselling author Val McDermid delivers a propulsive new thriller that finds journalist Allie Burns has become an editor, and as the Cold War and...Read more

Stone Town

The book cover for Stone Town by Margaret Hickey includes the tagline 'Where land is the new gold and people will die for it.'

The image is looking out across a dry, ripe looking field of grain to a small stone building on the left and more open fields and trees to the right. The sky above is dusty brown and yellow. There's a quote at the top of the image 'Astonishingly assured crime .. A pitch perfect outback noir'. Weekend Australian on Cutters End

Stone Town is captivating new rural crime drama from the author of the bestselling Cutters End.

With its gold rush history long in the past, Stone Town has definitely seen better days. And it’s now in the headlines for all the wrong reasons . . .

When three teenagers...Read more

Deadly Intent

The image of the book cover for Deadly Intent by Laraine Stephens is a drawing of an art deco style 2 story terrace house with elaborate ironwork and a spiked fence. There's a white 1940's style car out the front.

It is October 1923. What looks like a routine report, on the heavy rains battering Melbourne, becomes another case of murder for The Argus’s celebrated crime reporter, Reggie da Costa, devotee of fashionable suits and flamboyant automobiles. A flooded basement hides a ghastly secret: the...Read more

The Carter of 'La Providence'

The book cover of the audio version of The Carter of 'La Providence' by Georges Simenon has a small tagline 'Inspector Maigret'. The image is of a lone figure in a coat and hat leaning against something in a darkened room

What was the woman doing here? Why was her body found in a stable, wearing pearl earrings, a stylish bracelet and white buckskin shoes?

She must have been alive when she got there because the crime had been committed after ten in the evening. But how? And why? No one had heard a...Read more

A Decline in Prophets

The image of the book cover for A Decline in Prophets by Sulari Gentill includes the tagline 'A Rowland Sinclair Novel', with the quote 'Rowland Sinclair ... the gentleman sleuth ... with a penchant for living la vie de boheme' Sun Herald. 

The cover is made up of a shot of three men, and one woman standing in front of a deck railing, looking out towards a city view featuring high buildings. The men are wearing 1940's style suits, two in hats, and the woman is wearing a long dress with a coat over the top, and a hat. There is a paint brush above their heads with a blood spatter at the brush end.

In 1932, the R.M.S. Aquitania embodies all that is gracious and refined, in a world gripped by crisis and doubt.

Returning home on the luxury liner after months abroad, Rowland Sinclair and his companions dine with a suffragette, a Bishop and a retired World Prophet. The Church...Read more

Country of the Blind

The image of the book cover for Country of the Blind by Christopher Brookmyre. It has a yellow background with a large key above Country, then a keyhole as the o in Of, and a small shadow coming off the N in Blind.

The murder of a media mogul in his country mansion appears to be the result of his disturbing a gang of would-be thieves. The robbers are swiftly caught, but when they are unexpectedly moved to a different prison they escape. Back in Edinburgh, a young solicitor reveals to the press that...Read more

A Dead American in Paris

The book cover for A Dead American in Paris by Seth Lynch has the tagline 'The Salazar Mysteries' and a quote 'A real insight into the minds and lives of the post war Paris years ....'

The image is a drawing of a man in evening suit on the right, he has slicked back hair and is in profile. In the background is the Eiffel Tower, and there are explosions of light in the sky.

Arty Homebrook lived and died in a world of sleaze which stretched from Chicago to Paris but never beyond the gutter. He'd been sleeping with Madame Fulton, which is why Harry Fulton promised to kill him. So far as the Paris Police are concerned it's an open and shut case. Harry's father...Read more