AustLit

'After surviving a brutal attack, Auckland cop DS Honey Chalmers has returned to her hometown to care for her mother. The remote coastal settlement of Waitutū holds complicated memories for Honey, not least the tragic suicide of her younger sister, Scarlett.

'Honey is hardest on herself. She let herself get too close to a gang informant. She got sloppy. The Reapers are a 501 gang of Aussie imports, ruthless and organised, and she's pretty sure the informant, mother-of-three Kloe Kovich, paid the price. But when a couple of gang enforcers turn up in Waitutū, Honey realises they are hoping she will lead them to Kloe. But if Kloe is still alive, can Honey save her this time around?

'When Honey catches up with her oldest friend, Marshall, her feelings are complicated. As teenagers they were inseparable, but Marshall was the last person to see Scarlett alive, and there are rumours they were sleeping together, that he broke her heart. Honey fears Marshall is not who she wants him to be. Eventually she learns the awful truth about the events that led her sister to take her own life.

'When Kloe arrives in town, Honey and Marshall must work together to try and keep the hapless Kloe out of the hands of those who want her – and Honey – silenced.

'Gripping and suspenseful, with a killer ending, The Call propels the reader into the world of a terrifying new kind of gang – and introduces a major new talent in crime writing.' (Publication summary)

''So you believed the alleged rapists over the alleged victim?' Jane's voice took on an indignant pitch. 'Girls lie sometimes.' I nodded. 'And rapists lie all the time.'

'When Senior Detective Antigone Pollard moves to the coastal town of Deception Bay, she is still in shock and grief. Back in Melbourne, one of her cases had gone catastrophically wrong, and to escape the guilt and the haunting memories, she'd requested a transfer to the quiet town she'd grown up in.

'But there are some things you can't run from. A month into her new life, she is targeted by a would-be rapist at the pub, and realises why there have been no convictions following a spate of similar sexual attacks in the surrounding district. The male witnesses in the pub back her attacker and even her boss doesn't believe her.

'Hers is the first reported case in Deception Bay, but soon there are more. As Antigone searches for answers, she encounters a wall of silence in the town built of secrets and denial and fear. The women of Deception Bay are scared and the law is not on their side. The nightmare has followed her home.

'Chilling, timely and gripping, The Unbelieved takes us behind the headlines to a small-town world that is all too real - and introduces us to a brilliant new voice in crime fiction.' (Publication summary)