Showing results by publisher "Wavesound from W. F. Howes Ltd" in Mystery, Thriller & Suspense

When seasoned journalist Harry Dunkley is slipped a compromising photograph of a federal MP one frosty Canberra morning, he knows he is onto something big. But the deeper Harry investigates, the more he realises that this photograph is merely the hint of a larger conspiracy at work and a secret its guardians are willing to kill to protect.

Damaged but not broken after his ordeal in the Tasmanian wilderness, park ranger Taylor Bridges believes his ghosts are in the past - until a raging forest fire lays bare the remains of a young woman...and a decades-old killing ground. After the police enlist Taylor in their investigation, the evidence points to a preacher who reigned over The Falls a century ago. But when a crucial witness and a policewoman disappear, it's clear that the killer is alive and dangerous.

At 17, Jodie Cramer survived a terrifying assault at the hands of three strangers. Now 35, her past is a horror she's buried deep. When she sets out for a country escape with three friends, all she has in mind are a few laughs and a break from routine. However, unknown to the four women, their secluded cabin was once the focus of a police investigation and, like Jodie, it nurtures a dark secret....

Melbourne, 1868. When dazzling theatre star Marie St Denis dies in the arms of her best friend, fellow actress Lola Sanchez, everyone believes it was suicide by laudanum overdose. Everyone except Lola. On the brink of stardom herself, she risks everything by embarking on a quest to find Marie's killer. When journalist Magnus Scott, writing as 'the Walking Gentleman', publishes a compassionate obituary about her friend, Lola decides to seek his help.

Every evening, Allison watches her husband’s new house, desperate to find some answers. Every morning, she puts on a brave face to teach kindergarten. She’s a good teacher, everyone says so - this stalking is just a tiny crack in her usual self-control. A late enrolment into her class brings little Gracie. Allison takes the sick girl under her wing, smothering Gracie with the love she can’t give her own son. When Gracie has a chance to go to America for treatment, Allison whips up the community into a frenzied fundraising drive.

In secluded Devlins Reach, on the shores of the Hawkesbury River, three bodies are unearthed in an excavation site. When a wilderness expert, Park Ranger Taylor Bridges, is called in to assist local police, he soon discovers the town has an unsettling history - one to match Taylor's own haunted past. But the quiet location and picturesque beauty of The Reach are hiding something darker than Taylor could have anticipated. Within the town's tight-knit community of loggers, store owners and tight-lipped locals, someone is targeting the residents one by one.

It’s the most shocking scandal ever to reach the inner sanctum of power in the Holy See. The Vatican’s treasurer, Cardinal George Pell, was ordered to face trial in his native Australia after being charged with multiple counts of child sexual abuse. Investigative journalist Lucie Morris-Marr, who was the first reporter in the world to reveal the allegations against the cleric, attended each day of the subsequent legal case. She lifts the lid on the proceedings, which for so long were in lock down due to a controversial media black-out.

August, 1944. In German-occupied Paris, former schoolteacher Auguste Duchene has stumbled upon an unusual way to survive: he finds missing people. When he’s approached by members of the French Resistance to locate a missing priest - and a cache of stolen weapons - Duchene initially refuses. But the Resistance offer him no choice. Within hours, he’s also blackmailed by a powerful Nazi into searching for a German soldier who’s suspected of deserting.

Five years ago, Kate's partner, Max, abandoned her for his pregnant lover. The affair has long since crumbled, but Kate has become fixated with Vee, her ‘replacement'. In a bid to find out what compelled Max to leave, she moves to Bridgewell, where Vee is now raising her four-year-old daughter, Iona. Warm and trusting, Vee is juggling work, single parenthood and a controlling ex-partner, Max, with whom she is still secretly sexually involved. When Vee meets charismatic artist, Tom, she is hopeful of establishing her first meaningful attachment since Max. But Kate has her own plans.

The close-knit community of Kinton Bay is shocked when fifteen-year-old Siena Britton makes a grisly discovery in the national park. She believes it's a skull from the town's violent colonial past and posts a video which hits the news headlines. Her parents, Meri and Rollo, aren't so sure. In 1998, their classmate went missing after a party in the Killing Cave. They're horrified to discover the destructive teenage parties are still happening, and Siena was there last weekend.

When eight-year-old Fin and his mum, Lindy, travel to spend Christmas with his gran in Sydney, Fin assumes they’ll return to their isolated country property - the only home he’s ever known. But he soon discovers that this large and crumbling riverside house, surrounded by bush and unwelcoming neighbours, is his home now.

When a local father is convicted of the possession and distribution of child pornography, the tight-knit, middle-class community is quick to unravel. He is granted permanent name suppression, and soon friend turns on friend, neighbour delivers up neighbour, and hysteria rapidly engulfs them all. Who among them was capable of such moral trespass?

Daniel is a 16-year-old drug dealer and he’s going to jail. Then, suddenly, he’s not. A courtroom intervention. A long car ride to a big country house. Other 'gifted delinquents.' The elusive, devastating Rachel, and Alex, so tightly wound he seems about to shatter. So where are they? It’s not a school, despite the 'lessons’ with the headsets and changing images. It’s not a psych unit - not if the absence of medication means anything. It’s not a jail, because Daniel’s free to leave. Or that’s what they tell him.

The shocking true story of a serial killer in 1930s Melbourne. November, 1930. One sunny Saturday afternoon, 12-year-old Mena Griffiths was playing in the park when she was lured away by an unknown man. Hours later, her strangled body was found, mouth gagged and hands crossed over her chest, in an abandoned house. Only months later, another girl was murdered, the similarities between the cases undeniable. Crime in Melbourne had taken a shocking new turn: this was the work of a serial killer, a homicidal maniac.

Rachael Schlank is a straight-talking detective who’s always felt like a fish out of water, bouncing between departments over the years. Now she’s finally found a home in Victoria Police's Cold Case Unit. When a vigilante starts targeting hunters, leaving clues about a long-ago cold case, Rachael is asked to join a task force investigating the crimes...along with a former colleague whose dangerous temper has already made an impact on her life.

PI Edwina 'Ted' Bristol's latest case is proving complicated. Ballerina Giselle Tereiti is the target of a stalker, but she's also the ex-wife of Ted's new flame homicide detective Spike. While the case is a win for Ted's agency, it means she's forced to distance herself from Spike. As Ted goes undercover via the dating apps in pursuit of suspects, the stalker ups the ante with a disturbing break-in at Giselle's home.

Barbara McClymont walks the cane fields searching for Janet, her sixteen-year-old daughter, who has been missing for weeks. The police have no leads. The people of Quala are divided by dread and distrust. But the sugar crush is underway and the cane must be burned. Meanwhile, children dream of a malevolent presence, a schoolteacher yearns to escape, and history keeps returning to remind Quala that the past is always present.

Any woman who’s ever been involved with a bad, bad man and been dumped will understand what it feels like to be broken, brokenhearted and bent on revenge. Taylor Bishop is hurt and 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 consults The Art of War and makes a plan. Then she takes the next irrevocable step - one that will change her life forever.

Art conservator JJ Jego’s hobby is photography. When an incident involving the police unfolds on the pier she starts clicking away. Later she finds she has captured something unusual in the window of an apartment. It looks like a Vincent van Gogh—a print surely, but it's not just any Van Gogh: the original Six Sunflowers was destroyed in 1945. And that's not the only famous painting she glimpses.

A late-night phone call is never good news for Homicide Detective Sergeant Rose Riley. This time she's being sent up to the Hunter Valley, where a woman has been found dead in her home. Rose grew up further along the valley. She knows that for every vineyard and golf course resort visited by tourists to the 'wine country', there are as many dilapidated fibro houses and drug dens, in the shadow of one of the state's largest prisons.