Book picks similar to
One Boy Missing by Stephen Orr


crime
australian
aussie-authors
mystery

Fatal Liaison


Vicki Tyley - 2011
    Greg's reason for joining has nothing to do with looking for love. His recently divorced sister Sam has disappeared and Greg is convinced that Dinner for Twelve, or at least one of its clients, may be responsible.Neither is Megan looking for love. Although single, she only joined at her best friend Brenda De Luca's insistence. When a client of the dating agency is murdered, suspicion falls on several of the members. Then Megan's friend Brenda disappears without trace, and Megan and Greg join forces. Will they find Sam and Brenda, or are they about to step into the same inescapable snare?

All These Perfect Strangers


Aoife Clifford - 2016
    Only Pen knows the reason why.College life had seemed like a wonderland of sex, drugs and maybe even love. The perfect place to run away from your past and reinvent yourself. But Pen never can run far enough and when friendships are betrayed, her secrets are revealed. The consequences are deadly.‘This is about three deaths. Actually more, if you go back far enough. I say deaths, but perhaps all of them were murders. It’s a grey area. Murder, like beauty, is in the eye of the beholder. So let’s just call them deaths and say I was involved. This story could be told a hundred different ways.’‘This is a novel of disquieting intimacy and controlled suspense, Aoife Clifford deftly tightening the screws until we share the narrator’s sense of emotional and physical confinement and the unremitting grip of the past.’ - Garry Disher, author of Bitter Wash Road

The Broken Shore


Peter Temple - 2005
    He lives a quiet life with his two dogs in the tumbledown wreck his family home has become. It's a peaceful existence - ideal for the rehabilitating man. But his recovery is rudely interrupted by a brutal attack on Charles Bourgoyne, a prominent member of the local community. Suspicion falls on three young men from the local Aboriginal community. But Cashin's not so sure and as the case unfolds amid simmering corruption and prejudice, he finds himself holding on to something that it might be better to let go.

Scrublands


Chris Hammer - 2018
    A year later, troubled journalist Martin Scarsden arrives in Riversend to write a feature on the anniversary of the tragedy. But the stories he hears from the locals about the priest and incidents leading up to the shooting don't fit with the accepted version of events his own newspaper reported in an award-winning investigation. Martin can't ignore his doubts, nor the urgings of some locals to unearth the real reason behind the priest's deadly rampage.Just as Martin believes he is making headway, a shocking new development rocks the town, which becomes the biggest story in Australia. The media descends on Riversend and Martin is now the one in the spotlight. His reasons for investigating the shooting have suddenly become very personal. Wrestling with his own demons, Martin finds himself risking everything to discover a truth that becomes darker and more complex with every twist. But there are powerful forces determined to stop him, and he has no idea how far they will go to make sure the town's secrets stay buried.A compulsive thriller that will haunt you long after you have turned the final page.

Dead in the Water


Tania Chandler - 2016
    And safer. But soon her crime-writer ex-boyfriend turns up in town to promote his new novel, in which a woman is found dead — murdered — in a country lake. Hours later, Brigitte watches the police pull a body from the water near her Gippsland home.Her husband, a country cop now, is at the scene, though it’s not his investigation; he’s only helping the Melbourne Homicide Squad. But there’s something he’s not telling Brigitte.With her personal life spiralling out of control once more, and fearing her family is in danger, who can Brigitte turn to? And what if she makes the wrong choice?'Dead in the Water' is about trying to escape the cycle of trauma. It delves into the darkness beneath the surface of fear, betrayal, and revenge, to find a glimmer of hope.

Hades


Candice Fox - 2014
    Very unusual cops . . .Homicide detective Frank Bennett has an intriguing new partner. Dark, beautiful, coldly efficient, Eden Archer is one of the most enigmatic colleagues Frank has ever worked with—that includes her brother Eric, who’s also on the Sydney Metro police force. All of them are tested to the core when a local man discovers a graveyard of large steel toolboxes lying at the bottom of the harbor. Each box contains a grisly trove of human body parts.For Frank, the madman’s clues are a tantalizing puzzle. For Eden and Eric, the case holds chilling links to a scarred childhood—and a murderous mentor named Hades. But the true evil goes beyond the bloody handiwork of a serial killer…

The Build Up


Phillip Gwynne - 2008
    To Dusty it's the chance she's been looking for: a spectacular case to revive her flagging career.

The Sunday Girl


Pip Drysdale - 2018
    Someone comes into your orbit and swivels you on your axis, like the wind working on a rooftop weather vane. And when they leave, as the wind always does, you are different; you have a new direction. And it’s not always north.Any woman who’s ever been involved with a bad, bad man and been dumped will understand what it feels like to be broken, broken-hearted and bent on revenge. Taylor Bishop is hurt, angry and wants to destroy Angus Hollingsworth in the way he destroyed her: Insidiously. Irreparably. Like a puzzle, he’d slowly dissembled … stolen a couple of pieces from, and then discarded, knowing that nobody would ever be able to put it back together ever again. So Taylor consulted The Art of War and made a plan. Then she took the next step – one that would change her life forever. Then things get really out of control – and The Sunday Girl becomes impossible to put down.

Forgotten


Nicole Trope - 2017
    How on earth could this happen?All Malia needed was a single litre of milk and now she's surrounded by police and Zach has disappeared. Detective Ali Greenberg knows that this is not the best case for her, not with her history - but she of all people knows what Malia is going through and what is at stake.Edna is worried about the new residents at the boarding house. She knows Mary would turn in her grave if she knew the kinds of people her son was letting in.And then there is someone else. Someone whose heart is broken. Someone who feels she has been unfairly punished for her mistakes. Someone who wants what she can't have.What follows is a heart-stopping game of cat-and-mouse and a race against the clock. As the hours pass and the day heats up, all hope begins to fade.A gripping, haunting family drama shot through with emotion and suspense.

The Ex Girlfriend


Nicola Moriarty - 2019
    After everything she's been through, Georgia knows she deserves someone like him, to make her feel loved. Safe.The only problem is his ex-girlfriend. Luke says Cadence is having trouble accepting their break-up, but Georgia thinks there's more to the story. She also has the feeling someone is watching her.When everything starts to go wrong at work, at home, in her old friendships and her happy new relationship with Luke, Georgia starts to feel truly afraid.Cadence wants what she has. What would she do to get it?And can Georgia trust anyone at all? Praise for Nicola Moriarty 'I devoured it' Marian Keyes 'Accelerates in intensity and sheer originality with every page' Australian Women's Weekly 'Dramatic, mysterious and compelling' Vogue

Bright Air


Barry Maitland - 2008
    She 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 they knew where she was.On a cliff-face in New Zealand, two men fall to their deaths carrying the secret of a horrifying betrayal. Four years before, the bright and beautiful Luce, another member of the same close-knit group of friends, had also died tragically while climbing. As the circle of friends dwindles, Luce's best friend, Anna, persuades Josh, Luce's ex-lover, to help in her own investigation, as she's convinced that the original verdict of accidental death was wrong. Had detail been overlooked, or, worse, ignored? In an attempt to uncover the truth, Josh and Anna follow Luce's last days to Lord Howe Island, but the long-cold trail and conspiratorial islanders seem certain to defeat them. After all, who could possibly have a reason to murder Luce?A nail-biting page-turner, Bright Air is the compelling new mystery from the master of crime writing, Barry Maitland.

Through the Cracks


Honey Brown - 2014
    **.......................Four-year-old Nathan Fisher disappears from the bank of a rocky creek. Did he drown or was he taken? The search for the missing boy grips the nation. A decade later, young teen Adam Vander has grown tall enough, strong enough, to escape his abusive father. Emerging from behind the locked door of their rambling suburban home, Adam steps into a world he knows little of. In the days that follow, with the charismatic and streetwise Billy as his guide, Adam begins to experience all that he's missed out on. And he begins to understand that he has survived something extraordinary. As the bond between the boys grows, questions begin to surface. Who is Adam really? Why was he kept so hidden? Was it just luck that Billy found him, or an unsettling kind of fate? Unearthing the shocking truth of Adam's identity will change the lives of many and put at risk a cast of flawed, desperate people. It's a treacherous climb from the darkness. For one boy to make it, the other might have to fall through the cracks.

The Dragon Man


Garry Disher - 1999
    Detective Inspector Hal Challis and his team must apprehend him before he strikes again. But first, Challis has to contend with the editor of a local newspaper who undermines his investigation at every turn, and with his wife, who attempts to resurrect their marriage through long-distance phone calls from a sanitarium, where she has been committed for the past eight years for attempted murder—his.

One Last Child


Anni Taylor - 2020
    The heat was stifling that day, the tinkle of an ice-cream van in the air....Three-and-a-half years later, in the dead of winter, the children are returned to their families...one by one.All except for Ivy - the granddaughter of Homicide Detective Kate Wakeland. The other four children say Ivy is dead.Speculation grows that the mysterious abductor is enacting a cruel revenge plot due to a murderer that Kate put in jail years before.Kate isn't sure what to believe. But one thing is certain - she's about to begin the battle of her life. When the children were first stolen, she was prevented from investigating the case.But now, Kate will be relentless in uncovering the identity of the abductor and discovering what happened to Ivy.

Life or Death


Michael Robotham - 2014
    During that time he has suffered repeated beatings, stabbings and threats by inmates and guards, all desperate to answer the same question: where's the money?On the day before Audie is due to be released, he suddenly vanishes. Now everybody is searching for him - the police, FBI, gangsters and other powerful figures - but Audie isn't running to save his own life. Instead, he's trying to save someone else's.Michael Robotham has created the ultimate underdog hero, an honorable criminal shrouded in mystery and ready to lead readers on a remarkable chase.