The Bone Forest
V.J. Chambers - 2019
The cult members killed anyone Vivian told them was a threat to their beliefs. Now, another killer takes young girls of nine or ten, all related to Vivian’s original victims. He drugs them, suffocates them, and painstakingly arranges them in ritualistic poses. The bodies give up no evidence to the killer’s identity. When Wren Delacroix finds the latest victim in the middle of giving a tour, she’s forced to admit to herself that she came back to her home town because of her perverse interest in the case. These dead girls, she can’t get them out of her head. Even though she dropped out of the FBI Academy and tried to flee from the dark parts of herself, she can’t run away. Before she knows what she’s doing, she’s spouting her fully formed profile of the killer to Detective Caius Reilly, head of the tri-state task force, and she’s begging him to let her help. She needs to solve this case and stop this killer. If only to prove to herself that she’s nothing like her mother Vivian.
The Collector
John Maher - 2020
The Collector doesn’t agree.When world renowned archaeologist Philip Carlton suddenly and unexpectedly commits suicide, the police are called to investigate. Heading up the investigation is Detective Lucy O’Hara, a Forensic Linguist – and she immediately sees something is wrong with the suicide note. In her gut, she knows this was cold-blooded murder.Battling sceptical superiors and the Irish establishment, Lucy digs for the truth and begins to uncover a shadowy trade in ancient artefacts led by a mysterious figure known only as ‘The Collector’.As Lucy works to uncover his identity, she soon realises she is up against a ruthless mastermind who is systematically eliminating anyone who might lead her to him. But Lucy won’t give up and soon The Collector turns his attention to her…The Collector – the first in a gripping new series featuring Detective Lucy O’Hara.
The Heatwave
Katerina Diamond - 2020
One stranger. One killer…Two bad things happened that summer:A stranger arrived. And the first girl disappeared. In the wake of the crime that rocked her community, Felicity fled, knowing more than she let on. But sixteen years later, her new life is shattered by the news that a second girl has gone missing in her hometown. Now Felicity must go back, to face the truth about what happened all those years ago. Only she holds the answers – and they’re more shocking than anyone could imagine. The heatwave is back. And so is the killer.
All the Wrong Places
Joy Fielding - 2019
Paige's mother, Joan, is trying to get back on her feet after the death of the love of her life two years ago. And Paige's longtime friend, Chloe, is considering giving her unfaithful husband a taste of his own medicine.Together, the women are navigating the choppy waters of online dating, until one of them unwittingly makes a date with a killer, starting the clock on a race to save her life.New York Times bestselling author Joy Fielding has written a complex, electrifying thriller about friendship, jealousy, and passion--a deadly combination.
The Murder Game
Carrie Doyle - 2021
Heckler’s murder. He just wanted to spend alone time with the new British girl at their boarding school. But little did he know someone would end up dead right next to their rendezvous spot in the woods, and his best friend and roommate Oscar Weymouth would be the one to take the blame. With suspects aplenty and a past that’s anything but innocent, Luke Chase reluctantly calls on his famous survival skills to solve the mystery and find the true killer.
Blinding Lies
Amy Cronin - 2020
The mystery haunts her, and she hopes her job in a busy city Garda Station will one day help her find answers.The case of a man shot dead crosses her desk – and Anna is shocked to discover that the main suspect is her childhood friend Kate Crowley. Certain that Kate is innocent, Anna is determined to help her clear her name. But first she has to find her …Tom Gallagher’s son David is dead, and Tom believes Kate is responsible. Now his older son John is missing – unable to grieve for one son until he finds the other, desperation can cause a man to do terrible things … Then the German Meier brothers descend on the city, intent on finding an item David had offered to sell them. Even Tom doesn’t know where it is, but he suspects Kate Crowley must have taken it.Kate is on the run. She is trapped in the dead man’s city – can her old friend help her find a way out?In a week where a political summit is taking place and the city is on high alert, Kate must struggle to stay hidden and stay alive. And Anna is drawn into the twisted race against time, falling deeper into danger.
The Girl I Used to Be
April Henry - 2016
Now she’s determined to search for the truth—and the killer is even more determined to stop her.When Olivia’s mother was murdered and her father disappeared, everyone suspected her father had done it. Fast-forward fourteen years. New evidence now proves Olivia’s father was actually murdered on the same fateful day her mother died. That means there’s a killer still at large. Can Olivia uncover the truth before the killer tracks her down?
Ghosts
Dolly Alderton - 2020
When she meets Max, a beguiling romantic hero who tells her on date one that he's going to marry her, it feels like all is going to plan.A new relationship couldn't have come at a better time - her thirties have not been the liberating, uncomplicated experience she was sold. Everywhere she turns, she is reminded of time passing and opportunities dwindling. Friendships are fading, ex-boyfriends are moving on and, worse, everyone's moving to the suburbs. There's no solace to be found in her family, with a mum who's caught in a baffling mid-life makeover and a beloved dad who is vanishing in slow-motion into dementia.Dolly Alderton's debut novel is funny and tender, filled with whip-smart observations about relationships, family, memory, and how we live now.
Funkytown
Paul Kennedy - 2021
The community is paralysed by fear, and a state’s police force and national media come to find a killer. Meanwhile, seventeen-year-old Paul Kennedy is searching for something else entirely. He is focused on finishing school, getting drafted into the AFL and falling in love. So much can change in a year.The rites of passage for many Australian teenage boys – blackout drinking, simmering violence and emotional suppression – take their toll, and the year that starts with so much promise ends with Kennedy expelled, arrested and undrafted. But one teacher sees Kennedy self-destructing, and becomes determined to set him on another path.Told with poignancy and humour, and evoking the brilliant,dusty haze of late Australian summer, Funkytown is a love letter to adolescence, football, family and outer suburbia.
Room 15
Charles Harris - 2020
A detective inspector and a thoughtful self-reflective man, he goes against his counsel's advice and takes the stand in court.This is his story.Ross found himself wandering the streets one night, bleeding from the head and unable to remember the past year and a half. But before he could make sense of it, he was summoned to a crime scene where a nurse had been brutally murdered.His amnesia unnerved him and, fearing the worst, Ross allowed himself to be taken to hospital, only to be viciously attacked by a stranger with a knife.Suspecting that the attack was connected with the nurse's murder and that his own police colleagues were behind it, Ross set out on two parallel investigations: one into the killing and the other into his own mind.But when he digs into his own psyche, he is scared by what he finds...Is Ross being set up or is something far more disturbing behind the killings?
The Nancys
R.W.R. Mcdonald - 2019
Now Pike is back with his new boyfriend Devon to look after Tippy while her mum's on a cruise.Tippy is in love with her uncle's old Nancy Drew books, especially the early ones where Nancy was sixteen and did whatever she wanted. She wants to be Nancy and is desperate to solve a real mystery. When her teacher's body is found beside Riverstone's only traffic light, Tippy's moment has arrived. She and her minders form The Nancys, a secret amateur detective club. But what starts as a bonding and sightseeing adventure quickly morphs into something far more dangerous. A wrongful arrest, a close call with the murderer, and an intervention from Tippy's mum all conspire against The Nancys. But regardless of their own safety, and despite the constant distraction of questionable fashion choices in the town that style forgot, The Nancys know only they can stop the killer from striking again.The Nancys is gripping and glorious, a heart-warming novel for anyone who's ever felt they were on the outside looking in. At its heart it is about the family we make and how we must summon the courage to face the truth, no matter what the cost may be.
The Weight of Blood
Laura McHugh - 2014
Folks still whisper about her mother, a bewitching young stranger who inspired local myths when she vanished years ago. When one of Lucy's few friends, slow-minded Cheri, is found murdered, Lucy feels haunted by the two lost girls-the mother she never knew and the friend she couldn't protect. Everything changes when Lucy stumbles across Cheri's necklace in an abandoned trailer and finds herself drawn into a search for answers. What Lucy discovers makes it impossible to ignore the suspicion cast on her own kin. More alarming, she suspects Cheri's death could be linked to her mother's disappearance, and the connection between the two puts Lucy at risk of losing everything. In a place where the bonds of blood weigh heavy, Lucy must decide where her allegiances lie.
Turn of Mind
Alice LaPlante - 2011
Jennifer White's best friend, Amanda, is found dead with four of her fingers surgically removed, Dr. White is the prime suspect. But she herself doesn't know whether she did it. Told in White's own voice, fractured and eloquent, a picture emerges of the surprisingly intimate, complex alliance between these life-long friends—two proud, forceful women who were at times each other's most formidable adversary. As the investigation into the murder deepens and White's relationships with her live-in caretaker and two grown children intensify, a chilling question lingers: is White's shattered memory preventing her from revealing the truth or helping her to hide it? A startling portrait of a disintegrating mind clinging to bits of reality through anger, frustration, shame, and unspeakable loss, Turn of Mind is a remarkable debut that examines the deception and frailty of memory and how it defines our very existence.
The Dark Winter
David Mark - 2012
To that moment when the masked man appeared from the doorway of the church and looked into his eyes.‘Is there anything distinctive, Sarge?’ asks Nielsen.‘Yes’, he says, with the sudden sense that memory is important.‘There were tears in his eyes.’DS Aector McAvoy is a man with a troubled past. His unwavering belief in justice has made him an outsider in the police force he serves.When three seemingly unconnected people are brutally murdered in the weeks before Christmas, the police must work quickly to stop more deaths. It is only McAvoy who can see the connection between the victims. A killer is playing God – and McAvoy must find a way to stop the deadly game.
The Griekwastad Murders: The Crime that Shook South Africa
Jacques Steenkamp - 2014
It was shortly before 19h00 when Don Steenkamp jumped out of the vehicle and ran into the station’s charge office, covered in blood, to announce that his parents and sister had been brutally shot and killed on the family farm, Naauwhoek. Although the killings were initially thought to be just another farm attack, months later a sixteen-year-old youth was arrested for the murders, setting in motion a chain of events that would grip South Africa, and divide the people of Griekwastad.Based on interviews with all the role-players, including the investigating officers on the case, the forensic and ballistic experts, and family and friends of the deceased, this is the riveting account of what really happened on Naauwhoek farm on that fateful day, as told by the reporter who followed the case from day one…