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

The neat suburban homes of the Peninsula seem like an improbable setting for sex parties, blackmail and murder. But when DI Hal Challis is called to investigate the murder of Janine McQuarrie - shot in a deserted country lane in front of her seven-year-old daughter - his progress is hampered by a web of lies and secrets. Everybody has something to hide, something to lose. And someone in Waterloo is determined to kill again.

A car crash victim clings to life and is rushed to hospital but can't be saved. Hours later, the body is stolen from the morgue. No one knows who the dead woman was or why her body was taken. Detective Sergeant Gemma Woodstock is back in her hometown of Smithson on maternity leave when the bizarre incident occurs. She is intrigued by the case but reluctant to get involved, despite the urging of her journalist friend Candy Fyfe. But in the days after the body goes missing, the town is rocked by another shocking crime and Gemma can't resist joining the investigation

Lizzie Burdett was 18 when she vanished, and Noah Carruso has never forgotten her. She was his first crush, his unrequited love. She was also his brother Tom’s girlfriend. 12 years later, an inquest into Lizzie’s disappearance is looming, and Tom is coming home to give evidence after a decade away. The brothers’ long-held grudges are quickly resurfacing. A few weeks before the inquest begins, Noah meets Alice Pryce on holiday. They fall for each other fast and hard, but Noah can’t bear to tell Alice his deepest secrets.

In 1998, an apparently ordinary Australian man is arrested and charged with a series of brutal murders. The news shocks the nation, bringing both horror and resolution to the victims' families, but its impact travels even further—into the past, as the murders rewrite personal histories, and into the future, as true crime podcasts and biopics tell the story of the crimes. Highway 13 takes murder as its starting point, but it unfolds to encompass much more. Fiona McFarlane presents an unforgettable, entrancing exploration of the way stories are told and spread, and at what cost.

From the best-selling author of The Sunday Girl. When Charlie sees a man who is the spitting image of her husband, Oliver, on a dating app, her heart stops. Her first desperate instinct is to tell herself she must be mistaken - she caught only a glimpse from a distance as her friends were laughingly swiping through the men on offer. But she knows it’s no mistake. She took that photo. On their honeymoon. She just can’t let it go.

Detective Inspector Daniel Clement is back in Broome, the tropical town where he grew up, licking his wounds from a busted marriage and struggling to be impressed by his new team of small-town, inexperienced cops. But stagnation and lethargy soon give way to a case with urgent purpose. On the edge of the desert, a man is found dead in a crocodile-infested watering hole. And he is only the first. The connection between the victims is elusive, but Clement must pursue it as a decades-old mystery begins to unravel and a monster cyclone brews on the horizon.

After the death of her husband, Adam, in an horrific plane crash, Gemma Sinclair defies community expectations—and Adam's dying words—by deciding to hang on to Billbinya, the 10,000-hectare station he bequeathed to her. As if Gemma's grief and the job of looking after Billbinya aren't enough, a wave of innuendo soon sweeps the community that Adam's plane crash was no accident. Police officers confirm the rumour when they visit Gemma and tell her Adam's death was almost certainly related to his involvement in a cattle and sheep duffing ring.

When a mysterious invitation arrives for Miss Phryne Fisher from an unknown Captain Herbert Spencer, Phryne's curiosity is excited. Spencer runs a retreat in Victoria's spa country for shell-shocked soldiers of the First World War. It's a cause after Phryne's own heart but what could Spencer want from her? Phryne and the faithful Dot view their spa sojourn as a short holiday but are quickly thrown in the midst of disturbing Highland gatherings, disappearing women, murder and the mystery of the Temperance Hotel.

Detective Sergeant Philip ‘Cato' Kwong is light on sleep but high on happiness with his new wife Sharon Wang and their baby girl. But contentment is not compatible with life in the Job, and soon a series of murders of Fremantle's homeless people gets in the way of Cato's newfound bliss. As New Wave journalist Norman Lip flirts online with the killer, it becomes apparent that these murders are personal—every death is bringing the killer one step closer to Cato.

They'll Never Hold Me is the true story of an antihero with a code of honour who captured the public's hearts and minds even as he enraged the cops and the establishment. Brilliantly researched and written by Michael Adams, of the Forgotten Australia podcast, this never-before-told tale takes us beyond the public adventures that made Simmo into Public Enemy No. 1 to reveal the haunting tragedies he was trying to outrun – and the terrible fate that even he might not escape.

Dubbed the Housemate Homicide, it's a mystery that has baffled Australians for almost a decade. Melbourne-based journalist Olive Groves worked on the story as a junior reporter and became obsessed by the case. Now, nine years later, the missing housemate turns up dead on a remote property. Olive is once again assigned to the story; this time reluctantly paired with precocious millennial podcaster Cooper Ng. As Oli and Cooper unearth new facts about the three housemates, a dark web of secrets is uncovered.

Born and bred on the land, Jordan Windcroft is brave and independent. She's had to be. Her life revolves around running her property almost single-handedly on next to no money, and waiting out her four years of probation—a rap that she took for one of her closest friends for a crime she didn't commit. Thankfully there's an end to her problems in sight. Jordan's probation period is almost up, and if she can just make the cattle sale, there's a chance she can pull herself out of more than ten years of serious debt and keep her precious farm.

Queensland in 1976 churns with corruption. When Detective Ray Windsor defies it, he is exiled deep into the state's west. Royalton is a town on its knees and plagued by crimes left largely un-investigated by the local police chief, Kennedy, and his elusive boss. Mutual dislike between Kennedy and Ray gradually turns ugly as Ray and his new partner, Arshag, uncover a pattern of crimes that no one seems concerned about solving. But when two girls from local immigrant families are found dead and another disappears, Ray and Arshag are forced to take the law into their own hands.

A 15-year-old girl has gone missing in the middle of the night, and the following morning her boyfriend is found brutally murdered in his home. Was the girl responsible, or is she also a victim of a killer? But who would want two teenagers dead? After personal tragedy finds police detective Gemma Woodstock in the coastal town of Fairhaven with her son in tow, she has begged to be part of a murder investigation rather than take the time to figure out how to handle the next stage of her life.

Fire in the Head addresses a deep taboo in Australian society—the legacy of child sexual abuse and what victims must endure to bring perpetrators to justice.

When wealthy property developer Francis Tan and his family are found slain in their mansion, Cato Kwong is forced to recall a personal history that makes his investigation doubly painful. The killer is elusive and brutal, and the investigation takes Cato to Shanghai. In a world of spoilt rich kids and cyber dragons, Cato is about to discover a whole lot more about the Chinese acquisition of Australian land—about those who play the game and those who die trying.

Leah has a good life. She lives on The Drove, an inner-city cul-de-sac, with her husband Moses and their two children. She and her neighbours—the drovers—look out for each other. Theirs is a safe, community-oriented enclave and that's the way it's going to stay. When itinerants set up camp in 'their' park, some of the drovers are unsettled, some are outraged, and all of them want the campers to move on. Not even Sholto, the campers' charismatic leader, can put their fears to rest.

Volunteering his services as a pilot to fly renowned international peace advocate Egon Kisch between Fremantle and Melbourne, Rowland is unaware how hard Australia's new attorney general will fight to keep the 'raging reporter' off Australian soil. Add a disgraced minister, an unidentified corpse and an old flame who will not be denied and once again, Rowland Sinclair stands against the unthinkable, with an artist, a poet and a brazen sculptress by his side.

Deaf since early childhood, Caleb Zelic is used to meeting life head-on. But now his best mate is dead, his ex-wife, Kat, is avoiding him and nightmares haunt him. But when a young woman is killed, after pleading for his help in sign language, Caleb is determined to find out who she was. And when the trail leads him back to his hometown, he uncovers secrets that could threaten any chance of reuniting with Kat and his life.

Hannah Tigone, bestselling Australian crime author, is crafting a new novel that begins in the Boston Public Library: four strangers; Winifred, Cain, Marigold and Whit are sitting at the same table when a bloodcurdling scream breaks the silence. A woman has been murdered. They are all suspects, and, as it turns out, each character has their own secrets and motivations—and one of them is a murderer.