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

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.

What would you do if you had the chance to change a pivotal moment from your past? How far would you go to save someone you loved? These are just two of the fateful choices a woman is forced to grapple with in this highly original and hauntingly evocative detective story of love and loss. At the core of the enigmatic Stella’s story, past and present, is a mystery she is compelled to solve, a beautiful young woman who went missing 50 years ago – and a tragedy much closer to home she must try to prevent.

A small town has been devastated by a bushfire, and Primary School Principal Phoebe Warton can't sleep. She's the single mother of 18-year-old Caleb, who is accused of starting the fire - on purpose. Twelve people are dead, students from her school among them; only a monster would cause such carnage. But where was her son was that day? No one knows but Caleb, and he's not talking.

A young African boy has been murdered in a back alley. Despite running low on empathy, social worker Stella Hardy heads into the night to comfort the grieving mother. But when she gets there, she makes a discovery that has the potential to uncover something terrible from her past. Enlisting the help of Senior Constable Phuong Nguyen, Stella's investigation draws her further and further into a dark world of drug dealers, sociopaths and killers.

Vernon and Penelope never want to see their son Caleb again. Not after he bashed his wife and ended up in gaol. A lifetime of careful parental love wiped out in a moment. But when Vernon, a retired teacher, hears that Caleb is being regularly visited and savagely beaten by a local criminal as the police stand by, he knows he has to act. What has his life as a father been if he turns his back on his son in his hour of desperate need? He realises with shame that he has grievously failed Caleb. No longer.

Paris, 1938. The last sigh of summer before the war. As Australian journalist Charlotte ‘Charlie' James alights at the Gare du Nord, ready to start her role as correspondent for The Times, Paris is in turmoil as talk of war becomes increasingly strident. Charlie is chasing her first big scoop, needing to prove to her boss that she can do this job as well as, if not better than, her male counterparts. And the best way to forge the necessary contacts quickly is to make the well-connected expats, Lord and Lady Ashworth, her business.

In a hotel room on a sleepy Pacific island, Judy Novak waits. And worries. It isn’t the first time 29-year-old problem child Paulina has kept her mother waiting. But Judy can’t ignore the island’s jagged cliffs and towering pines - or the dread that Paulina has finally acted on her threats to take her own life. When Paulina’s body is discovered, Judy’s worst fears seem confirmed. Only, Paulina didn’t kill herself. She was murdered.

A secret band of radical environmentalists, under the name 9S have spent years secretly infiltrating industry and government, working themselves into the most trusted jobs...sleepers ready to act. As a series of global catastrophes erupt, Australian ex-CIA agent Dr. Tori Swyft, finds herself at the centre of it all. Having once been briefly recruited as a 9S member at university, she may be the world's only chance of stopping the threat before it's too late.

It's 1930, and the Great Depression is taking hold. In Melbourne, thirteen-year-old Morris Turner, a little anxious by nature, feels more at home gazing at the stars than spending time with his detached father Jude, a detective, and older sister, Lottie. When a young woman is murdered in Jude's home town of Gemini, he is assigned to solve the case. With fear and polio rising in the city, Jude reluctantly takes Morris and Lottie to the small town he left long ago. At the family farm in Gemini, Morris is drawn into a community reeling from a murder and a financial crash.

Freshly single and thoroughly traumatised from the ordeals of breast cancer, Eleanor Mellett starts a new job as teacher in a remote mountain hamlet. It’s peaceful. Almost too peaceful. And what's become of the previous teacher, the saintly Miss Barker who has disappeared abruptly under mysterious circumstances? And what's with all those locks on her front door? And what is that bus doing idling outside her house late at night? When the local priest tries to exorcise Eleanor of her 'cancer demon', he seems to have unleashed a host of other demons set to torment her.

Will Power has returned from the Northern Territory shaken, stirred and generally discombobulated. It is late 1942, and, demeaningly enough, he finds himself playing a pantomime dame. If only this was his only worry.... As his great hero, Shakespeare, once noted, 'When sorrows come, they come not single spies, but in battalions'. Can Will finally overcome his tendency to be the living embodiment of Murphy's law?

Tessa Lowell is working in Uganda researching the effects of PTSD and war on child soldiers when she is kidnapped by rebel forces. Isolated in an increasingly volatile situation, she tries to form a bond with 13-year-old Francis, already an experienced soldier and survivor of shocking violence. In Melbourne, Tessa's parents learn government agencies can do little to help, so they contact their son Stephen, an astute if manipulative businessman based in Cape Town who agrees to search for her but has reasons of his own to do so.

World leaders are being assassinated by toxic gas. An obscure group of Chinese terrorists claims responsibility, but are the Ten Brothers - a secret circle of China's political, military and business elite - using terrorists as a cover to justify the assassination of China's President and the overthrow of Beijing? Once again, ex-CIA operative Tori Swyft finds herself embroiled in the middle of an explosive conspiracy. Can she survive long enough to thwart the Ten Brothers?

Disgraced former lawyer Clementine Jones is on the shores of paradise - Queensland’s Great Sandy Straits - trying to outrun her past. Bored with her house-sitting gig, she becomes a reluctant recruit to the local environmental group, campaigning to save an endangered turtle as developers close in. Then a body is found at the base of a quarry, and Clem’s world is turned upside down.

On a Monday afternoon as Miranda Jack waits at traffic lights, a stranger jumps into her car and points a gun at her chest. Forced to drive at high speed up the motorway, Miranda listens to the man’s frantic, paranoid rants, claiming he's being chased and that they're both now running for their lives. Two hours later, Miranda is safe but she can't simply walk away - not without knowing the truth about that terrifying drive....

Nothing ever happens in Haven Bay, which is why Rennie Carter - a woman who has been on the run for most of her life - stayed there. But that illusion of security is broken one night when Max Tully, the man she loves, vanishes without trace. Rennie, though, is the only person who believes Max is in danger, because she has a secret - a violent one that she's terrified has found her again....

Things are going well for Matt Buchanan. After some hard times, life is peaceful as sole-charge constable for the small, isolated settlement of Haast on New Zealand's wild West Coast. He's made friends among the locals, won their trust. He keeps their little world safe. And he's working in spectacular surroundings—the fierce Tasman Sea, the dense beech forest, the dark, cold swamps, the snowy Southern Alps.

When charity worker Cate and website designer Rory, a married couple in their thirties, return from their European holiday, they make a nightmare discovery. Their credit cards have been cancelled, their bank account has been emptied, and their phones and internet have been cut off. Their home in the New South Wales coastal town of Kiama has been rented out as a holiday let, and their dog and pet-sitter have disappeared. Meanwhile, Cate's work colleagues have received copies of her handwritten resignation letter, posted from Paris, filled with insults and lurid allegations.

It’s the festive season in the Windmark Ranges and Sergeant Jesse Redpath’s day is going from bad to worse. It begins with her having to arrest the usual drunks and troublemakers and ends with the death of a colleague out on the Redline road. A death which may or may not have been an accident. Jesse learns there have been other deaths and disappearances in the ranges, and that the local rumour mill suggests the perp is an elusive, semi-mythical character who goes by the name of ‘Anarchy.’ Beneath the charm of a close-knit community, a darker truth festers, and Jesse’s driven to expose it.

All Stella Hardy wants is a romantic country getaway with her artist boyfriend, Brophy. Instead, she must head to the Athol Goldwater Agricultural Prison (aka Arsehole Bogwater) to visit her jailbird brother, Ben. But Stella has barely set foot in the prison when a prisoner is found dead. Before she knows it, Stella finds herself tasked with investigating the suspicious death. Her old nemesis Minister for Justice Marcus Pugh is pressuring her to save his election-year bacon, and former gang member Percy Brash is providing a much more chilling form of pressure….