Are you looking to play the armchair detective over the summer reading period? This is the perfect time to get swept up into an absorbing crime or thriller book!
A Sociopath’s Guide to a Successful Marriage by M. J. Oliver
There’s a dead body in my living room.
I’ve not called the police because it was I who stabbed him. Seven times in all. The truth is, it’s surprisingly difficult to dispatch someone with a vegetable knife.
In case you’re wondering, the dead man is not my husband. I do resent our pitiful sex life and his woeful lack of ambition, but I wouldn’t murder him for it. Not yet, anyway.
Right now, I have far more pressing concerns: scheming to get my daughter into the perfect school; buying my dream home in Hampstead; and disposing of a corpse.
A woman’s work is never done. I’ve created the perfect life – and I’ll kill to keep it.
Inside Man by John McMahon
Following McMahon’s electrifying series debut, Head Cases, Gardner Camden and his misfit FBI team return. For all fans of Slow Horses and David Baldacci.
FBI Agent Gardner Camden is an analytical genius with an affinity for puzzles. He and his squad of brilliant yet quirky agents make up the Patterns and Recognition (PAR) unit, the FBI’s hidden edge, brought in for cases that no one else can solve.
PAR’s latest case involves a militia group stockpiling weapons. When their confidential informant in the case is killed, it quickly becomes clear that the militia did not kill him.
As the squad looks into the evidence surrounding his murder, an unidentified man is caught on camera with their informant. This mystery man’s picture is connected to another case at the FBI, an unsolved series of murdered women, buried in the ground in north Florida. Could they have uncovered a serial killer? And if so, what is his connection to their C.I.?
As PAR juggles an investigation into both the dead women and the militia, they enroll a new informant, only to find the case escalating in dangerous ways. How will PAR handle a case that increasingly looks like a terrorist plot? And in the serial case, with no puzzles or witnesses, and few leads, how will a group set up to decode riddles be successful?
The Afterlife of Harry Playford by Steven Carroll
NFrom acclaimed writer Steven Carroll, comes the second in his new series of post-war literary crime novels featuring Detective Sergeant Stephen Minter.
‘What does a pile of clothes left on a deserted beach tell you? It’s a cold midwinter Monday. Seaweed and shells litter the flat expanse of sand. There is a light wind, the sea more disgruntled than choppy, the tide out. And there amongst it, the neat pile of clothes. Almost like a coded message waiting to be deciphered.’
Queenscliff, Victoria, 1951: A man has disappeared, leaving only a pile of neatly folded clothes on a beach. Missing, presumed drowned. But for Detective Sergeant Stephen Minter, newly emigrated from England, it’s far from an open-and-shut case. Because this is no ordinary man. Harry Playford is a successful politician, a charming man who is a rising ministerial star, a possible contender for the top job, who leaves behind a beautiful wife – and a mistress. There could be a simple explanation. But, these murky days of the Cold War, in a time of rising mistrust and suspicion, spies and espionage, Stephen can’t throw off his feeling that something’s definitely not right. About the whole business.
From one of Australia’s finest, most critically acclaimed writers, The Afterlife of Harry Playford is an absorbing, poignant and moving novel of hard choices and past mistakes.
Icarus 17 by Charles Cumming
A new thriller set in the ingenious world of Box 88, the covert intelligence service operating without government oversight.
A YOUNG COUPLE ON THE RUN
Max Radinsky thought he was living the perfect life in Athens. But when his girlfriend, Yasmine, is forced to flee the city, Max joins her on a desperate journey across Greece.
What begins as an escape becomes a fight for survival as the young couple become the targets of an international manhunt. Untrained and living off their wits, they know their luck won’t last forever…
THE SPY HUNTING THEM DOWN
Lachlan Kite, head of covert intelligence service BOX 88, hasn’t seen his former lover, Martha Raine, for more than twenty years. But when Martha begs his help in finding her missing son, Kite has no choice but to act.
What they uncover is worse than either could have imagined. Yasmine is carrying a secret which could destabilise the Middle East for a generation – and a team of merciless Israeli intelligence agents have been given orders to kill her on sight.
To save Max – and stop a global crisis – Kite and Martha must reach the young couple before their pursuers close in.
The Last Death of the Year by Sophie Hannah and Agatha Christie
The new Hercule Poirot mystery by Sophie Hannah, follow-up to the bestselling Hercule Poirot’s Silent Night.
New Year’s Eve, 1932.
Hercule Poirot and his good friend Inspector Edward Catchpool arrive on the Greek island of Lamperos for a little holiday…or is it?
Catchpool suspects Poirot has a different reason for being there — one he won’t reveal. As the clock ticks towards the New Year and a festive guessing game takes a sinister turn, can Poirot stop a murderer who is determined to strike before midnight?
The Missing by Fleur McDonald
‘This land is millions of years old and has held secrets that we are able to uncover to this very day, yet the same land seems to have swallowed Max without a trace.’
In the middle of Missing Persons Week, teenager Max Galbraith disappears after a party at the two-up ring on the outskirts of Kalgoorlie. With hundred-year-old mine shafts hidden in the area, no one can sure whether he got lost while under the influence of drugs or if something more sinister has happened.
Lily Carter, a talkshow radio host, receives information about Brendan Cook, another Kalgoorlie teenager who disappeared in similar circumstances the year before. But the police didn’t launch a full-scale search for Brendan. Why not?
Enter Detective Angie Sullivan, new to Kalgoorlie and yet to understand how the town works. With no clear links between the two cases, and Lily accusing the police of incompetence, the town is tipped into uproar. What secrets are hiding out there in the bush? And can Angie discover them before any more kids go missing?
End Game by Jeffrey Archer
William Warwick and Ross Hogan return, for one last time, in a gripping and unputdownable finale. Available now!
London, 2012. The eyes of the world are on Britain as the country prepares to host the Olympic Games.
But the glare of the spotlight makes London a target for some of the most dangerous people on earth. And the moment the bid is won, an international conspiracy is set in motion to unleash a devastating attack that will leave the world in chaos.
One man stands between triumph and disaster: Commander William Warwick, heading up Scotland Yard’s elite team. But as he pursues the shadowy organisation, he sets off a deadly game of cat and mouse which will take him from the bustling streets of London to the hidden corridors of power. Can Warwick stop the assassin before the greatest show on earth becomes a catastrophe …
Gravity Let Me Go by Trent Dalton
Trent Dalton, Australia’s #1 bestselling author, returns with the astonishing Gravity Let Me Go – a story you won’t ever forget.
Longlisted for Best Fiction in the Indie Book Awards 2026
How will you ever know how the story ends, if you let the story go?
Noah Cork has just published the scoop of a lifetime: a white-hot true-crime book about the cold-blooded killer who slipped an unfolding murder mystery into his mailbox. But if this is his moment of triumph, then why is the tin roof being ripped from the walls of his reality? Why are skeletons standing upright in his closet? Why do people want to run him over in the street? And why does his wife keep writing a cryptic message across the bathroom mirror? As a severe storm heads towards Brisbane, Noah is hurtling headfirst into a swirling storm of secrets. He must now cling for dear life to the only story that ever really mattered. He must hold on to the truth. He must hold on to the story. He must hold on to love.
Dark, gritty, hilarious and unexpected, Gravity Let Me Go is Trent Dalton’s deeply personal exploration of marriage and ambition, truth-telling and truth-omitting, self-deception and self-preservation. It’s a novel about the stories we want to tell the world and those we shouldn’t, and how the stories we keep locked away are so often the stories that come to define us.
It’s the story of a murder.
It’s the story of a marriage.
It’s the story of a lifetime.
The Italian Secret by Tara Moss
No.1 international bestselling author Tara Moss returns with an immersive post-war mystery as glamorous investigator Billie Walker follows a trail of secrets to Italy’s sun-drenched Neapolitan coast.
Naples, 1943. Deep within a secret network of underground tunnels, a woman takes shelter from a wartime air raid and prays her husband will return safely.
Indian Ocean, 1907. A young woman embarks on a lonely journey to begin a new life far from home.
Sydney, 1948. Billie Walker, recently returned from a stint as a wartime investigative journalist, has reopened her father’s private inquiry office. Billie is cleaning out old filing cabinets when she uncovers a dusty box whose contents just might upend everything Billie thought she knew about her late, beloved father.
Soon Billie is on the scent, uncovering the secrets of her family’s past, travelling aboard the first postwar luxury passenger ship from Sydney to Naples in search of answers. And as the trail leads her toward two women whose history is entwined with her own, she realises she is not the only one at risk. Billie’s father had an enemy – one who may now be stalking Billie around the world – and the closer Billie gets to the truth, the more danger she finds herself in.
High Rise by Gabriel Bergmoser
A heart-pounding, high-stakes, high-adrenalin relentless blast of an action-packed thriller, from Gabriel Bergmoser. the bestselling author of The Hunted and The Caretaker.
After a year of searching, rogue ex-cop Jack Carlin has finally found his estranged daughter, Morgan, holed up in the top floor of a rundown, grimy high-rise building. The trouble is, Jack’s unconventional policing and information-gathering methods in the past has made him some serious enemies. And what Jack doesn’t know as he heads into the building, intent on saving his daughter, is firstly, that Morgan doesn’t want to be saved – particularly not by him – and secondly, that the entire criminal underworld in the city are on their way too… There’s a bounty on his head, and they’re after his blood – and they don’t mind if Morgan is collateral damage.
As bounty hunters and gang members converge on the building, father and daughter are thrown into a desperate fight for survival through fifteen storeys of deadly enemies – with only each other to rely on. Think: Die Hard meets The Raid, but the funnier, grittier Australian version. Fast, furious and ferocious, this is thriller writing at its nail-biting, unputdownable best.
An Inside Job by Daniel Silva
Art restorer and legendary spy Gabriel Allon must solve the perfect crime in the dazzling new tale of murder, greed, and corruption from #1 New York Times bestselling novelist Daniel Silva.
Sometimes the only way to recover a stolen masterpiece is to steal it back …
Gabriel Allon has been awarded a commission to restore one of the most important paintings in Venice. But when he discovers the body of a mysterious woman floating in the waters of the Venetian Lagoon, he finds himself in a desperate race to recover a lost masterpiece by Leonardo da Vinci.
The painting, a portrait of a beautiful young girl, has been gathering dust in a storeroom at the Vatican Museums for more than a century, misattributed and hidden beneath a worthless picture by an unknown artist. Because no one knows that the Leonardo is there, no one notices when it disappears one night during a suspicious power outage. No one but the ruthless mobsters and moneymen behind the theft — and the mysterious woman whom Gabriel found in a watery grave in Venice. A woman without a name. A woman without a face.
The action moves at breakneck speed from the galleries and auction houses of London to an enclave of unimaginable wealth on the French Riviera — and, finally, to a shocking climax in St. Peter’s Square, where more than one life hangs in the balance. An elegant and stylish journey through the dark side of the art world and the Vatican’s murky finances, An Inside Job proves once again that Daniel Silva is the reigning master of international intrigue and suspense.
Murder at the Castle by David Safier
The #1 Germany cosy crime bestseller which features the crime-busting retirement adventures of the former German Chancellor, Angela Merkel, for fans of Richard Osman.
After a gruelling stint as the most powerful woman in the world, ex-German Chancellor Angela Merkel can finally put her feet up. With her husband Achim and their new pug Putin, she has retired to the idyllic village of Kleinfreudenstadt-on-Dumpfsee. But it isn’t easy to settle into country life. Angela’s fellow villagers all seem to want something from her. And baking and hiking just aren’t as exciting as international financial meltdowns, refugee waves or deranged American presidents.
So when local aristo Baron von Baugenwitz is found poisoned and dressed in armour in a castle dungeon locked from the inside, new life stirs in Angela. Finally, a problem that needs solving! Supported by her husband, her bodyguard – and of course Putin – she embarks on a dangerous hunt for the killer. Will she find him? Or will one of the six women suspects finish her off first? Questions only a great detective can answer…
Miss Merkel is on the case …
A Murder in Paris by Matthew Blake
From the No.1 international bestselling author comes a story of secret pasts and buried memories. A MURDER IN PARIS is a thriller you’ll never forget.
WHAT IF A MEMORY COULD GET YOU KILLED?
Imagine the past returning to you in fragments.
A hotel room, a pillow, a lifeless body.
Your ordinary, innocent life upended by one flash of memory.
You can’t remember what led to the crime.
All you know is that you must return to the scene, to the clues that lie waiting in Room 11.
But this is a mystery that goes far beyond that room, that night, that murder.
Are you ready to unlock the truth?
The Peak by Sam Guthrie
Sure to be THE debut thriller of 2025, The Peak is a nailbiting and unputdownable read, a powerfully taut, gripping and fast-moving international thriller that weaves a story of friendship, love and betrayal together with the ruthless geopolitics of China’s rise, set in the last 24 hours of the world as we know it.
‘Now I’ll tell you what happened, as best I can. No spin. No agenda. If I get something wrong, it’s not because I’m being evasive. It’s simply because I’m still trying to understand what happened today … It’s to explain, as best I can, what Sebastian has done, and why tomorrow when you wake up, it will be the end of the world.’
Political hatchet man Charlie will do anything to protect Sebastian, government minister and his best friend since their brutal private school days. Rising to power and prominence through international diplomatic postings and then the rough and tumble of Australian politics, they are as close as brothers – or so Charlie thinks – while both keep the secret that lies at the very heart of their relationship – a secret that in one way or another will change the world.
But then a single phrase in Mandarin is spoken in Sebastian’s ear and he does the unthinkable. As Charlie tries to piece it all together – from their youth spent in Hong Kong to the recent past in Beijing and Washington – things in the outside world start to fall apart too. Planes can’t land, the phone lines go down and the power is out. Then the secret intelligence services comes knocking. Charlie wonders, what the hell did Sebastian do?
From the jostling streets of Hong Kong to Beijing’s shadowy halls of power and the backstabbing Machiavellian workings of Parliament House in Canberra, The Peak is a powerful, propulsive and nailbitingly tense international thriller. Written with an extraordinary insider knowledge of China, the realities of global power and the inner dealings of the Australian Government, The Peak has the authenticity and moral complexity of a Le Carre novel and the narrative power of an Australian Robert Harris.
We Are All Guilty Here by Karin Slaughter
Welcome to North Falls.
A small town where everyone knows everyone. But nobody knows the truth.
Emmy Clifton has lived here all her life. She thinks she knows her neighbours. She’s wrong.
She thinks it’s just another hot summer night: a night like any other. She’s wrong.
When her best friend’s daughter asks for help, she thinks it’s just some teenage drama. She thinks it can wait. She’s never been more wrong in her life.
As the town ignites in the wake of the girl’s disappearance, Emmy throws herself into the search. But then she realises: You never really know a town until you know its secrets.
Is Emmy ready for the truth?