Into the Darklands and Beyond

Why are sex offenders and murderers the way they are?  Can they change?  And how can we protect our families?  Forensic scientist Nigel Latta has spent a large part of his working life trying to answer these questions.  In the first two editions of Into the Darklands, he took us into the...Read more

Bright Air

She stood panting on the narrow ledge, pressing herself back against the hard surface of the rock . . . heard a voice, far below, calling her name. She tried to answer, but her throat was parched and no sound came. They had heard the stone, clattering down the cliff to the sea, and now...Read more

Flight Risk

Disgraced former pilot Ted Anderson works for a top-secret government organisation set up to investigate terror-related incidents. Sent to Jakarta to find out as much as he can about the pilot of a vanished Garuda flight, he discovers a flight simulator in the pilot's apartment.

...Read more

Crimespotting: An Edinburgh Crime Collection

All the short stories in Crimespotting are brand new and specially commissioned. The brief was deceptively simple - each story must be set in Edinburgh and feature a crime. The results range from hard-boiled police procedural to historical whodunit and from the wildly comic to the...Read more

Life Before

Suspense and family secrets surround a pair of estranged siblings in a compelling debut thriller.

She knew she should talk to him. But what was she to say? Once there had been blame to apportion, rage to hurl. Now she no longer had a sense of that. Who knew what the facts...Read more

Carl Williams

Barwon Prison's maximum security unit, 19 April 2010: Carl Williams is beaten to death with the stem of an exercise bike by a fellow inmate. And so, the last moments of this convicted contract killer and key figure in the Melbourne underworld echoed the rest of his life: violent, chilling,...Read more

Family Reunion

Odile Annesley has been living in self-imposed exile in France for forty years following a family tragedy. With her eightieth birthday approaching, she contacts her scattered grandchildren to give them details of her will. The five very different granddaughters see it as the perfect...Read more

Shooting Star

Introduction by Adrian McKinty

Pat Carson’s old eyes were on me, looking for something.

‘Man is born unto trouble,’ he said.

I said, ‘As the sparks fly upwards.’

Deep lines at the corners of his mouth. ‘Know your Job. Soldier. Policeman....Read more

Dear Me

Sir Peter Ustinov's autobiography is told with wit and insight. From his birth in April 1921, it spans his extraordinary career as actor, playwright, film star and director, confirming his early belief that he is 'irrevocably betrothed to laughter'. Ustinov's renowned gift for mimicry is...Read more

Cul-de-Sac

The ruthless and inquisitive Sergeant Harry Harker investigates the claims of a witness with a shameful past that a woman's fatal fall was no accidentRead more

Between the Acts

In Woolf's last novel, the action takes place on one summer's day at a country house in the heart of England, where the villagers are presenting their annual pageant. A lyrical, moving valedictory.Read more

Burning Mountain

Five went up. Only four came down . . .

In April 2006, fifteen-year-old Oliver went hiking to the lookout on Burning Mountain - and vanished without trace.

His schoolfriends – Bob, Bell, Phil and Paul – were the last ones to see him on the...Read more

Never Forget

BEFORE
A man running along a remote clifftop path on an icy-cold February morning.
A woman standing on the cliff's edge.
A red scarf on the ground between them.

AFTER
The man is alone - paralysed by fear...Read more

Christmas is Murder

Available in ebook for the first time ever, this duo of classic Christmas crime short stories by Sunday Times number one bestseller, Val McDermid - A Traditional Christmas and A Wife in a Million - introduces DI Maggie Staniforth.

In A Traditional Christmas, the peace of a...Read more

Fauna

How far would you go to save your daughter?

Set seventeen years into a very recognisable future, Fauna is an astonishing psychological drama with an incredible twist: What if the child you are carrying is not entirely human?

Using DNA technology, scientists...Read more

The Thrill of It

That afternoon, when the police and then my mother finally arrived, they found me sitting beside Marlowe holding her hand and talking to about a boy I had a crush on, about the buttery yellow jumpsuit I had seen in a shop window that would look perfect on her; about those two cups of half-...Read more

Elevation

Castle Rock is a small town, where word gets around quickly. That's why Scott Carey wants to confide only in his friend Doctor Bob Ellis about his strange condition: he's losing weight, without getting thinner, and the scales register the same when he is in his clothes or...Read more

Boney Creek

When several small-town locals die under mysterious circumstances, an aspiring journalist is determined to prove the connection between them, only to discover the dangerous secrets they left behind.

Boney Creek is a dying town where not a lot happens. The...Read more

I Wanna Be Yours

Poet Laureate of Punk, fashion icon, TV and radio presenter, social and cultural commentator.

At 5' 11' (8 stone, 32 inch chest, 27 inch waist), in trademark suit jacket, skin-tight drainpipes and dark glasses, with jet-black back-combed hair and mouth full of gold teeth, John...Read more

El Flamingo

Winner of the Best Adult Fiction Book at the 2024 New Zealand Book Lovers Awards.

With no role in sight and nothing to lose, actor Lou Galloway leaves Los Angeles and heads to Mexico to drown his sorrows in cheap mezcal. But, after a round too many, he soon ends up at a grandiose...Read more

Conviction

A town ruled by fear. A cop who won't be broken. A pulse-pounding debut thriller that pulls no punches.

Queensland in 1976 churns with corruption. When Detective Ray Windsor defies it, he is exiled deep into the state's west. It's easy out there to feel alien...Read more

The Foster Mother

There's a world of difference between a mother and a psychopath. But sometimes, it's hard to tell them apart...

When a young mother abandons her baby in a crowded park, Nora steps in to take her place. Little does Nora know that this act of kindness will plunge her into a...Read more

He Went Back for His Hat

A judgement to remember.

Having escaped the lions’ den, Mr Lehrmann made the mistake of going back for his hat.’

Justice Michael Lee with an introduction by Chanel Contos

On 15 April 2024 Justice Michael Lee delivered his judgement...Read more

Paper Cage

Masterton isn’t a big town. The community’s tight, if not always harmonious. So when a child goes missing it’s a big deal for everyone. And when a second kid disappears, the whole town’s holding their own children that little bit tighter.

Lorraine doesn’t have kids, but she has...Read more

Lowbridge

Where everybody knows everyone, how can somebody just disappear?
A missing girl. Decades of silence. A secret too big to bury.

1987: It’s late summer and a time of change when 17-year-old Tess Dawes leaves the local shopping centre in...Read more

Duck Season Death

June Wright wrote this lost gem in the mid-1950s, but consigned it to her bottom drawer after her publisher foolishly rejected it. Perhaps it was a little ahead of its time? Because while it’s a tour de force of the classic country-house murder mystery, it’s also a delightful romp, poking...Read more

Wimmera

In the long, hot summer of 1989, Ben and Fab are best friends.

Growing up in a small country town, they spend their days playing cricket, yabbying in local dams, wanting a pair of Nike Air Maxes and not talking about how Fab's dad hits him or how the sudden death of Ben's next-...Read more

Crime Scenes Stories

Is there really such a thing as an innocent person?

Teachers, cops, mothers, wives, everyone has their breaking point; that moment where it could go either way. From the prostitute with no way out, to the bitter author, and a cop who just wants his leave, the characters in this...Read more

Sawbones

They call him Sawbones:  a serial killer touring America, kidnapping young women.

The FBI are trying to catch him - but they're getting nowhere.

The latest victim is Laura Jones, 16, blonde, pretty ... and the daughter of one of New York's biggest gangsters.  Laura...Read more

Crime Fiction Since 1800: Detection Death Diversity

Since its appearance nearly two centuries ago, crime fiction has gripped readers' imaginations around the world. Detectives have varied enormously: from the nineteenth-century policemen (and a few women), through stars like Sherlock Holmes and Miss Marple, to newly self-aware voices of the...Read more

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