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

When Justice Maurice Tempest is murdered in the Glenrock State Conservation Area in Newcastle, local detective Senior Sergeant Callan O'Connor is the first on the scene. News of a second body, found in the same location days later, makes what had looked like a revenge killing into so much more.

Beautiful twin sisters Iris and Summer are startlingly alike, but beyond what the eye can see lies a darkness that sets them apart. Cynical and insecure, Iris has long been envious of open-hearted Summer's seemingly never-ending good fortune, including her perfect husband, Adam. Called to Thailand to help sail the family yacht to the Seychelles, Iris nurtures her own secret hopes for what might happen on the journey. But when she unexpectedly finds herself alone in the middle of the Indian Ocean, everything changes.

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.

When the body is identified as a young woman who vanished years ago – with little effort ever made to find her – the entire community comes under suspicion. How did she meet such a gruesome end? What did those closest to her know? Was Tate, the town's golden boy, her final boyfriend? And why has the return of an Anglican priest and his daughter left everyone so tense?

One Thursday morning, Lexie Parker dashes to the shop for biscuits, leaving Bella in the safe care of the other mums in the playgroup. Six minutes later, Bella is gone. Police and media descend on the tiny village of Merrigang on the edge of Canberra. Locals unite to search the dense bushland. But as the investigation continues, relationships start to fracture, online hate messages target Lexie and the community is engulfed by fear.

Detective Sergeant Pierce Ryder of the Sydney homicide squad is on the hunt for notorious fugitive Gavin Hutton. After months of dead-ends, the breakthrough Ryder has been hoping for leads him back to the New South Wales Snowy Mountains on the trail of the suspected killer. Meanwhile, when an injured man bursts into the remote Thredbo lodge managed by Eva Bell, her first instinct is to protect her daughter, Poppy. The terrifying arrival of Jack Walker turns Eva’s world upside down as the consequences of Jack’s presence become clear.

The First Friend is a novel in a time of autocrats, where reality is a fiction created by those who rule. Reflecting on Putin's Russia, Trump's America, Xi's China and Murdoch's planet Earth, it is at once a satire and a thriller, a survivor's tale in which a father has to walk a tightrope every day to save his family from a monster and a monstrous society. Where safety lies in following official fictions, is a truthful life the ultimate risk?

Family. It means everything to Sheridan. Her brother Lachy is finally home in Australia and she's excited about Easter with both of their families. But when a traumatic incident tears the families apart, she blames him. Lachy knows he's not coping right now but his sister doesn't have the full story. And nor does he. There are some gaps in his memory. How is he connected to a DNA request, a missing woman, and a hit and run? To untangle the truth, he must decide who he can trust. His friends? His family? Himself?

Natalie King has been hired to do a psychiatric evaluation for the children’s court. A simple custody dispute. But nothing is ever simple. Malik claims his ex-wife, Jenna, is crazy and compulsive; Jenna claims Malik has been abusing their daughter, Chelsea. But what if all the claims are true? Or none? How can Natalie protect the child? And with both parents saying they’re desperate to keep their daughter safe - what if one of them is desperate enough to kill?

Detective Bridgette Cash faces her toughest investigation yet when a local cop vanishes in a remote mountain range. As she delves deeper into the mystery, Bridgette finds herself at odds with the tight-lipped locals of nearby Sanbury and in the crosshairs of a dangerous syndicate. With a deadly snowstorm looming and time running out, she must navigate a treacherous web of deceit to uncover the reason behind the officer’s disappearance. Can she solve the case before it’s too late, or will the icy trails of Sanbury claim another victim?

High school friends Lani, Tinker, Maya and Stig were inseparable until an unthinkable act shook the group. Now in their thirties, three of the friends are still close while Stig has disappeared completely, unable to face what happened in high school. With Lani’s wedding fast approaching, she is determined to bring the group back together. This leads them to a spiritual retreat where Stig has been living off-the-grid, and to Stig’s enigmatic partner–or leader–Acharya.

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.

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?

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.

After years away from his hometown of Melbourne, Luke Harris is back on track. All he wants is a normal job, his own house and a dog. But Luke is a man with a past, where life was anything but peaceful and his skills ran to the dark side. A past not easily forgotten - or forgiven. When he crosses paths with Gus Alberici—the brutal criminal he worked for as a teenager—he's dragged reluctantly back to his old life. Luke's father has vanished, along with a chunk of Gus's cash. And something is up with his new girlfriend's father ...

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.

For Ellen Whitfield, the betrothal of her dear friend Harriet to Ellen's brother has brought both loss and solace. But when Harriet suddenly breaks off the engagement, ostensibly at the insistence of her deceased mother, Ellen is bewildered. And when she learns that Harriet is involved with a spiritualist group led by the charismatic Caroline McLeod, she fears losing her friend altogether.

In March of 1989, Emmerson Kerr is alone. One morning listening to her Walkman, a newsreader's words stop her dead. 'A warning to our listeners that this story is graphic in nature. The body of an 84-year-old woman has been found in the foyer of her apartment building on Sydney's lower North Shore ... ' Emmerson stood, held in place like an anchor, like a nail in wood, like the breath of a frightened woman alone in her home. She listened to the details and remembered back to that day, twelve years before, in her grandmother's Paddington studio.

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.

A serial killer is stalking the streets of Sydney, hell-bent on recreating scenes from the Fabrica, the 16th-century foundation text of modern European anatomy. His cold, methodical attacks have the city on edge, but the serial killer may not even be the darkest player. Desperate for a breakthrough, decorated homicide detective David Murphy draws into the case his art-historian sister, Joanna, and his wife, Sylvia. Unravelling the mystery of who is behind the killings pushes each beyond the limits of what they thought possible.