AustLit

(Publication summary)

'‘You and I are going to have a chat. If you hang up, this girl dies.’

'Adam Turner works the mid-dawn shift at his local radio station. From 12am to 6am, it’s his job to fill the airtime with old songs, inane chatter, and the occasional talkback caller. It’s a long way from his prime-time slot from over a decade ago, when he was a star in the making. Now there’s no producers, no billboards, no stakes, and, crucially, not many listeners. His frequent callers are drunk college students headed home from a night out, or long-range truck drivers. He is completely alone in the studio from midnight until dawn every night.

'And then one night at 12:45am, he gets a different kind of call, with higher stakes than he could ever have wanted. The caller’s rules are simple – stay on the line, live on air, until dawn, or the woman they are holding captive will die.

'The night wears on and Adam is tormented by his caller, forced to answer increasingly personal questions, exposing his fall from grace for all to hear. He must try to figure out just who is calling him, what they really want, and how he can stop them. All while staying live on air, and keeping the psycho talking.

'But as the conversation gets deeper, is Adam willing to broadcast his darkest secrets to the world in order to keep a stranger safe?' (Publication summary)

'Ernest Cunningham returns in a deliciously witty locked room (train) mystery.

'When the Australian Mystery Writers’ Society invited me to their crime-writing festival aboard the Ghan, the famous train between Darwin and Adelaide, I was hoping for some inspiration for my second book. Fiction, this time: I needed a break from real people killing each other. Obviously, that didn’t pan out.

'The program is a who’s who of crime writing royalty:

the debut writer (me!)
the forensic science writer
the blockbuster writer
the legal thriller writer
the literary writer
the psychological suspense writer.

'But when one of us is murdered, six authors quickly turn into five detectives. Together, we should know how to solve a crime.

'Or commit one.

'How can you find a killer when all the suspects know how to get away with murder?'

Source: Publisher's blurb.

'Seven strangers are invited to compete to win a clifftop mansion. The rules are simple: each contestant must have at least one hand in contact with one part of the house at all times. The last one to take their hand off, wins the house.

'After 36 hours, a contestant is murdered. Soon they start to realise that it may not be the last person to leave the house that wins it, it may be the last person alive.

'From the bestselling author of Find Us and Everyone in My Family Has Killed Someone comes a locked room mystery where the door is open, but no-one wants to walk through it.' (Publication summary)

'I was dreading the Cunningham family reunion even before the first murder.

'Before the storm stranded us at the mountain resort, snow and bodies piling up.

'The thing is, us Cunninghams don’t really get along. We’ve only got one thing in common: we’ve all killed someone.

My brother.
My step-sister
My wife
My father
My mother
My sister-in-law
My uncle
My stepfather
My aunt
Me'

Source: Publisher's blurb.

'Every object has a ghost.

'There is a small yellow backpack - half unzipped, mouth yawning to the pavement, contents strewn around it (a banana, an exercise book, a pair of scissors) - abandoned on a suburban footpath.

'Ten feet away, the rubber stamp of tyres, resisting clamped brakes, mount the curb and cut across the path. The tracks come to an end at a crippled stop sign.

'The street, a tree-lined suburban road dappled in late-afternoon sunlight, is calm. But anyone walking past can feel the ghosts: the prickle on the back of their necks that tells them something happened here. The story of a vehicle careening to a halt. Of a child’s backpack left in a hurry.

'That intuition all comes before they take a closer look, and see there is dark, dry red on the scissor’s blade. The ghosts are screaming now; the scene’s memory turns violent. And as the passers-by raise their phones to answer the question what is your emergency? They see more red. Between the tyre-tracks and the blood. There are two words, hastily scrawled on the sidewalk. Written in blood.

'FIND US.' (Publication summary)

A compelling new thriller from the author of Greenlight. When a popular TV presenter shoots himself live on air, his twin brother calls on the help of Jack Quick (from Greenlight) to help him search for answers – and they uncover a disturbing link to a suicide in their past . . .

'One million witnesses. One impossible murder.

'At 9.04pm, Sam ‘Midnight’ Midford delivers his light entertainment monologue to kick off his nightly current affairs show. He’s nervous and his assistant is convinced he’s about to propose to his girlfriend live on air. But instead of a ring, he pulls out a gun and shoots himself in the head.

'When child pornography is discovered on his work laptop, it is assumed that Sam killed himself before his dark secret was revealed.

'But Sam’s grief-stricken twin brother Harry is adamant that the porn was planted and is convinced Sam was murdered. He may have pulled the trigger on live TV, watched by millions, but Harry believes someone made Sam do it. He hires Jack Quick, TV producer and true crime podcaster, to help him discover the truth.

'Together Harry and Jack watch Sam’s final broadcast more closely and in a reflection on the TV monitor behind Sam they see the scrolling words from the teleprompter: I thought you wanted this. Don’t back out on me now.

'Did someone talk Sam into killing himself via the teleprompter? And what could someone say to make a person shoot themselves in front of one million viewers? What secret did Sam have that would be enough to compel him to take his own life? And what is the link with the suicide of Sam’s girlfriend Lily 13 years before?' (Publication summary)

'A nail-biting thriller that turns popular true-crime such as Serial and Making A Murderer on its head, Greenlight will shock with twists and turns you’ll never see coming.

'Four years ago, in the small town of Birravale, Eliza Daley was murdered. Within hours, her killer was caught. Wasn’t he?

'So reads the opening titles of Jack Quick’s new true-crime documentary. A skilled producer, Jack knows that the bigger the conspiracy, the higher the ratings - and he claims Curtis Wade was convicted on flimsy evidence and shoddy police work. Millions of viewers agree.

'Just before the final episode, Jack uncovers a minor detail that may prove Curtis guilty after all. Convinced it will ruin his show, Jack disposes of the evidence and delivers the finale unedited, leading to Curtis's eventual release.

'Then a new victim is found bearing horrifying similarities to the original murder. Has Jack just helped a killer walk free?

'Determined to set things right, Jack returns to Birravale looking for answers. But with his own secrets lurking just beneath the surface, Jack knows more than anyone what a fine line it is between fact and fiction. Between life and death.

'Now there's only one option left. The truth.'  (Publication summary)