Familiars and Foes

An old crush. A long-lost family member. A magical Labrador and a whole load of ghosts… At least Adeline can’t say life is boring!

Adeline yearns for family, but for years, the closest she’s gotten is her assistance dog, Coco.

When a frightening encounter with a...Read more

The Edge of Myself

A man on fire, a self-imposed lockdown and a badly timed love.

When introverted junior architect Estelle says no to the annual holiday, her family become even more disgruntled with her than usual. Choosing solitude over a five star, eight-week international trip means even co-...Read more

Tell Me Lies

Margot’s clients all lie to her, but one lie could cost her family and freedom.

Psychologist Margot Scott has a picture-perfect life: a nice house in the suburbs, a husband, two children, and a successful career. On a warm spring morning, Margot spots one of her clients on a busy...Read more

Soldiers, Tom Remiger

Another from the more unexpected side of the 2021 Ngaio Marsh list, SOLDIERS is partially a story about the realities of war, from a soldier's perspective, partially a mystery about what happened to Corporal Daniel Cousins, but mostly a visceral, devastating personal story of one man, a...Read more

Author: 

For Reasons of their Own

Robbie Gray, a talented but troubled Detective Inspector stationed in Melbourne, who has fallen foul of police bureaucracy, is called to a investigate a dead body found in a rural wetland swamp. Under-resourced, with a corpse that cannot be identified and no apparent motive for the murder,...Read more

Hip Flask and Hanging

97 year old Alice Atkinson has many ghosts in her past, but she never expected to see this one walk past her in the street.

She doesn't have much time to think about the past though as her friend Teresa asks her for help. She thinks someone is breaking into her apartment and...Read more

Soldiers

Breen sometimes thought sourly that Tiger Jackson would have made a good fascist. He told unreliable stories, he liked power and admiration, and he had all three military virtues- self-belief, luck, and an eye for the main chance. Despite all this, Breen liked him. Somehow it was impossible...Read more

Phoenix Du Rose

Phoenix Du Rose has inherited her mother’s restorative nature, but that’s exactly what will get her into trouble. Some problems are too big for a well-meaning teenager to fix and some people just don’t want her kind of help.

The brochure for the summer camp promised sunshine,...Read more

Death Count

Can a conspiracy be uncovered before the Death Count rises?

Forensic accountant Kat Munro fights corporate fraud during the day and kickboxes her demons at night while trying to ignore the nightmares that have plagued her since a car accident changed her life forever....Read more

Deadhead

The story starts with the death of Constable Garrett... and continues with his resurrection as a conscious cyborg initially controlled by Spencer Langley aged 13, inventor, entrepreneur and car thief. Things get even more complicated with the introduction of sinister criminals and Garrett’s...Read more

Neands

What if evolution got it wrong and the human race was threatened at the very core of its DNA? Charlie (14) is living in a time when a strange virus is affection sections of the Homosapien race. They are becoming more hostile, more aggressive. It seems there is a throwback to the Neand gene...Read more

Red Edge

Cassi Whelan, aged 12, and her father, Mike, have recently moved into a repaired house in Avondale, on the edge of Christchurch’s Red Zone. Although only four when the earthquakes destroyed the city, Cassi’s memories still haunt her, affecting much of her life. She is an obsessive runner...Read more

Puzzle Me Dead

The countdown has begun!

On her nineteenth birthday Careen survived a terrifying assault at the hands of the Clown Killer. She was lucky; she escaped - the next eleven girls did not. On each dead body the killer left a card numbered two to twelve.

Careen has tried...Read more

Shakti

Special powers are gifted, but there is a Faustian price to pay in this epic novel, packed with laughter, darkness, pain, dreams, superpowers, love and light.

What if the greatest gift you ever received came from those you trusted least? What if it stained your hands with...Read more

The Tally Stick

A compulsive and chilling novel about subjugation, survival and the meaning of family.

Up on the highway, the only evidence that the Chamberlains had ever been there was two smeared tyre tracks in the mud leading into the almost undamaged screen of bushes and trees. No other...Read more

A Trio of Sophies

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

Shooting Messengers

What if delivering the mail was a matter of life and death?

Somebody brutally kills a postman in Quake City while he’s delivering the mail.

Private investigator Danny Ashford suspects the police will bungle the investigation—they usually do. He joins forces with...Read more

Thrown to the Wolves

In this final volume of the Wolf Trilogy, New Zealand journalist Steve Carpenter is eking a precarious existence on the Mediterranean island of Cyprus. Suffering from "battle fatigue," he keeps busy writing about the coup de d'état and the Turkish invasion of the previous summer. He also,...Read more

Crimechurch

Life in the safe suburbs of Christchurch isn't dangerous enough for Marty. He needs excitement in punk, protest, politics and crackpipes. Marty soon finds Mona, a teenage runaway living in a flophouse of skinheads and goths. The two of them live for drugs and dodgy deals but they are...Read more

Dark Empire

Katherine Mansfield created some of literature’s most chilling characters, not least Harry Kember and his wife. They seemed out of place among the families enjoying summer holidays at Wellington’s Days Bay. Some of the women at the Bay thought that one day Harry would commit a murder....Read more

The Stone Wētā

“We talk about the tyranny of distance a lot in this country.
That distance will not save us.”

With governments denying climate science, scientists from affected countries and organizations are forced to traffic data to ensure the...Read more

The Secrets of Strangers

A regular weekday morning veers drastically off-course for five strangers whose paths cross in a London café - their lives never to be the same again when an apparently crazed gunman holds them hostage. But there is more to the situation than first meets the eye and as the captives grapple...Read more

Missing on Lion Rock

Sandy Barrett's hiking escapades were usually uneventful and relaxing, until the day she risked her life saving a trapped seagull and tumbled down a 100 metre cliff. After tree branches miraculously broke her fall, her body lay battered on a rocky ledge. A greater horror lay await to...Read more

Murder Ahoy!

Famous crime writer Bella Tyson is hired to co-host a Murder Mystery cruise, on a luxury liner sailing from Southampton to New York. She’s expecting an easy ride; fun and games, surrounded by amateur sleuths and fans of her books, all the while staying in a deluxe cabin and enjoying the spa...Read more

The Security

Secrets. Everyone has them. Nice ones that make your heart soar, little ones that make you blush, naughty ones that make you smile and dark ones you hope will remain hidden forever.

One thing’s for certain – everyone wants their secrets kept out of the public eye. Especially...Read more

Low Flying

Matt Bullock, an Auckland university student clashes with his flying instructor Jason Collins who tries to hit on Matt's racy girlfriend Fleur Lassiter, resulting in the two men brawling at their aeroclub.

Illegal immigrant Vladimir Zhukov, a ruthless Russian veteran of the...Read more

Katipo Joe: Blitzkrieg

Joseph St George is a young New Zealander, the son of diplomats in 1930s Berlin.

But the Nazis are on the rise and the world is on a spinning path to destruction.

Joe’s world is about to change, violently.

After a narrow escape from Germany with his...Read more

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