These are tales of fugitive lives: dazzling portraits of women and men on the run; from their present, their past, their future – from themselves…
Here, finally, is the complete collection of short fiction from award-winning author Wendy James. Holding a discerning mirror to...Read more
The blood of Adonis, thought Sarah, remembering the church that was built like a pagan temple. Coquelicot rouge - the symbol of a dying man whose blood stained the hillside in the spring.
Sarah Lane, abandoning her French lover for the brilliant Lebanese sunshine, believes that...Read more
It is 1919. The Great War has ended, but the Spanish flu epidemic is raging across Australia. Schools are closed, state borders are guarded by armed men, and train travel is severely restricted. There are rumours it is the end of the world.
In the NSW town of Flint, Quinn...Read more
Mixed in deep despair and on the verge of suicide, writer Genesis Hawke seeks to free his creative muse by using a newspaper advertisement to lure an at-large serial killer into giving his life story. But nothing is quite what it seems as Hawke soon discovers he is dealing with much more...Read more
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
It had been a normal day at work. Monika was locking up, ready to head home, when the man arrived. She didn't even see his fist until it was far too late...
Bundled into a car, tied up and taken in darkness to an old mill in the thick of a forest, she has been flung into a...Read more
If you're a security expert, what do you do if your fiancée suddenly goes missing, presumably kidnapped? If you're Daniel Trent, a highly trained specialist in hostage negotiation, the answer is You find out who took her and you make them talk. But what if your chief suspect is taken as...Read more
'Never before in the hundred year history of Australia has a female prisoner become so notorious as Louisa Collins.' - Evening News. Two inquests, four trials, three hung juries and the executioner...but was Louisa Collins really a husband killer? Was she the callous adulteress, drunkard...Read more
Aleksi lost his mother on a rainy October day when he was thirteen years old. Twenty years later, he is certain that he knows who's responsible. Everything points to millionaire Henrik Saarinen. The police don't agree. Aleksi has only one option: to get close to Henrik Saarinen and find out...Read more
'Get on with things. That was how Wendy had met her death. She'd been hiding something and no one had noticed. Everyone had been too busy getting on with things. Sophie knew this pattern like a favourite tune. Move on, get on. Make a ghost.'
Winter in Sydney. The city is brimming...Read more
Giverny. During the day, tourists flock to the former home of the famous artist Claude Monet and the gardens where he painted his Water Lilies. But when silence returns, there is a darker side to the peaceful French village.
This is the story of thirteen days that begin with...Read more
In The Student Body, Simon Wyatt takes the reader on a thrilling journey to catch a killer through his eyes as a former police detective. A popular fifteen-year-old girl is strangled to death at a school camp on Auckland's west coast. The posing of the body suggests a sexual motive. Nick...Read more
A fugitive in the present. A runaway in the past.
Eliza Carmody returns home to the country to work on the biggest law case of her career. The only problem is this time she’s on the ‘wrong side’ – defending a large corporation against a bushfire class action by...Read more
George Pell is the most recognisable face of the Australian Catholic Church. He was the Ballarat boy with the film-star looks who studied at Oxford and rose through the ranks to become the Vatican's indispensable 'Treasurer'. As an outspoken defender of church orthodoxy, 'Big George's'...Read more
An intimate, powerful, and inspiring memoir by the former First Lady of the United States.
In a life filled with meaning and accomplishment, Michelle Obama has emerged as one of the most iconic and compelling women of our era. As First Lady of the United States...Read more
Lucy Sorrenson is the only grown-up at her place, in her opinion. Her father acts like a teenage muso. Her grandad’s grasp on reality is slipping away and she’s sick of the responsibility of looking after them.
She wants to be in the school play, go to the cast parties, have...Read more
Seventeen-year-old Tyler lives in one of Edinburgh’s most deprived areas. Coerced into robbing rich people’s homes by his bullying older siblings, he’s also trying to care for his little sister and his drug-addict mum. On a job, his brother Barry stabs a homeowner and leaves her for dead,...Read more
She was slipping away. The further she fell, the closer the clouds seemed to come. Wispy transparent slipstreams of white. Cirrus. Pain smashed her head. Floating ...
When investigative journalist Chrissie O’Brian lands a senior job at The Argus, she is...Read more
I still see her sometimes in my sleep. She is walking through the blue and orange lights of the city or in the desert country of red ground, spinifex and oaks. Last night I dreamed she was climbing a green and blue mountain, the kind you see in the tropics, rich and heavy with steam and...Read more
Nat, a 47-year-old veteran of Britain's Secret Intelligence Service, believes his years as an agent runner are over. He is back in London with his wife, the long-suffering Prue. But with the growing threat from Moscow Centre, the office has one more job for him. Nat is to take over The...Read more
The Ultimate Life? Or the Ultimate Lie?
Alice Parker’s zest for life is contagious. When she’s not working in her father’s bar in London, she’s out partying with her friends. Some might say she is having too much fun.Read more
Secrets, lies and love.
Mystery and unsettling revelations keep up the suspense in this page-turning novel.
The last time I saw Sophie A, she was kissing James Bacon. She could have any guy she wanted, but she was kissing an English teacher who was eight years...Read more
The inside story of Mr Sin and his families.
Growing up the son of Australia's kingpin of vice, Alan Saffron had little chance of a normal life. In the landmark nightspots of Kings Cross, his father pioneered the lucrative underworld business of girls, grog and gambling - and...Read more
For Keiko Nishisato, leaving Tokyo is a rare adventure, but it's living in the quiet little town of Painchton, Scotland, that shows her how far she is from home. Keiko has never met friendlier people than the Painchton Traders. Only the Pooles, the butchers below her second-floor apartment...Read more
As the resourceful, relentless Li tracks her lost daughter across a disintegrating country, the journey will test the limits of her trust, her hope and her love. Unsheltered will leave you wrung out and gasping.
Relentlessly propulsive and profoundly moving, Unsheltered taps into...Read more
It’s 1979. Auckland is on the brink. Fashion and music are bursting through previous boundaries but prostitution is still illegal and male homosexuality is still a crime. Who is out to destroy Carmel O’Sullivan and her sister Tess, top call-girls in Rita Saunders’ gentlemen’s club? Is Tess embroiled in the heroin trade that has recently thrust New Zealand’s underbelly onto the world stage for the first time?Read more
There is a serial child killer stalking the streets of Melbourne.
The victims are killed gently, lovingly, a gold mark traced on their forehead.
This killer doesn't hate children. This killer believes in childhood innocence at any cost.
Unflinching...Read more
As the third wave of the virus hits, all inhabitants of Melbourne are given until 8pm to get to their homes. Wherever they are when the curfew hits, they must live for four weeks and stay within a 5km radius. When Lou’s son Samuel doesn’t arrive home by nightfall she begins to panic....Read more
Set in the Mackenzie Basin, this vivid novel is about familial love, friendship and how our lives touch, connect and impact upon one another.
‘The SUV advanced, without slowing as it passed; the driver probably didn’t even register him. Roland watched until it reached the canal...Read more
