AustLit

'Families can be thorny, especially when the closet's full of skeletons.

'It’s 2019, and Frank and Milo are fulfilling a dream they only recently realised they had – fatherhood. But they’re not only gaining a daughter – they’re inheriting some serious issues from little Lyra’s extended family. Milo is also discovering his own family history isn’t quite what he’s been told. Parenthood. Always full of surprises…

'With all this going on, they’d very much like to not be involved in any more violent crime, thanks.

'However, crime is not quite done with them in the fifth and final book of the Duo Ex Machina series.'

Source: Publisher's blurb.

'Frank and Milo were introduced in Fly By Night (1999), where they got caught up in crime for the first time - smuggling, murder and assault.

'Five years later, on the verge of The Big Time, Frank and Milo were tangled up in murder and kidnapping again in Sacrifice (2004). The first consequence of Milo's experiences was to out himself and Frank as a couple on national television.

'In 2009, Number One Fan explores the full consequences of the events of Sacrifice - anxiety disorders and the derailing of their music career - as well as the new directions Frank and Milo are taking now. Crime still loiters in the wings, however, or a type more often seen in the music industry: a stalker.

'So here we are in 2014, and Frank and Milo are still together, still in love, and with new challenges. They'd very much like to not be involved in any more violent crime, thanks. However, crime seems not to be quite done with them.'

Source: Publisher's blurb.

'Young Fidelia Knight arrives in Melbourne in 1874, alone except for her treasured companion, Samuel Johnson; well, half of him.

'To escape servitude, Fidelia hides each night in the renowned Coles Book Arcade. She loves words, you see, and wants to know them all.

'What she overhears in Coles sets her on a path that will change the lives of everyone she meets, starting with Jasper Godwin, the hopelessly underqualified manager of the new Billings Better Bookstore.

'Fidelia’s thirst for knowledge is contagious. She tutors two orphan boys and two illiterate women, inspiring them to unlock their creativity; and her exploration of colonial Melbourne takes her to some unusual places.

'Nothing daunts this diminutive genius, except the mystery of what really happened to her parents on the voyage from England, in Fin J. Ross' Billings Better Bookstore & Brasserie. With illustrations by award-winning author-illustrator, Judith Rossell.'

(Source: publisher's blurb)

'A journalist who travels the world exposing heinous crimes makes enemies. Olivia Wolfe has more than most.

'When her anonymous source is murdered, Wolfe must unravel the terrible secret that connects a British Cabinet Minister, a Vietnamese billionaire, and a poor South African teacher to a series of gruesome murders.

'Soon Wolfe is hunted by a terrifying assassin. With governments in the balance and the survival of one of the most magnificent creatures on earth in her hands, can Wolfe stay alive long enough to expose this shocking conspiracy?

'Four murders. Four countries. One terrible secret.'

Source: Publisher's blurb.

'Five years after a serial killer nearly put an end to Duo Ex Machina, Frank and Milo are still dealing with the aftermath, which includes a breakdown and the derailing of their career. But they're still together, still in love, and still making music.

'A new album is out, and Frank is producing too, helping former pop princess Gabriella Valli relaunch her career. Maybe this will be the comeback they've been looking for.

'Or it could be, if the mysterious letter-writing Number One Fan doesn't turn out to be dangerous as well as obsessed.'

Source: Publisher's blurb.

'Scarlet Stiletto: The Eleventh Cut - 2019 features thirteen award-winning stories from the 26th annual Scarlet Stiletto Awards.'

Source: Publisher's blurb.

'Doctors, nurses and health workers have a duty of care to their patients to ensure they act in the best interests of an individual; and not act or fail to act in a way that results in harm.

'But those featured within these pages are serial killers who roamed their places of work, preying on people at their most vulnerable.

'Emily Webb's Angels of Death is an updated collection of real life crimes exploring murders committed in hospitals and doctors’ surgeries - the very places where lives are supposed to be healed or saved.

'The accounts also include cases where the murderers struck in places that are meant to be safe havens, like aged-care homes and even people’s living rooms.

'The disturbing crimes in Emily Webb's Angels of Death take place in Australia, the United Kingdom, the USA, Canada and Europe.'

(Source: publisher's blurb)

'It's all about scars and what they mean.

'Old myths made new.

'Poems for those who've passed.

'Tales of the lost and found.

'Rarely seen stories, reprinted.

'Brand new stories - in new places and familiar worlds.'

Source: Publisher's blurb.

'In Stephen Johnson's Tugga's Mob, what happens on tour stays on tour. That was the mantra for the southern hemisphere backpackers who swarmed Europe in the 1980s. Foreign countries had to be explored and devoured in every way possible.

'Waikato-born Judy Williams worked hard for her Big OE: London, Paris, Rome, Gallipoli; and her adventures were dutifully recorded in her diary.

'A diary that also recorded how the obsessive Tugga Tancred and his Kiwi mates turned Judy’s trip of a lifetime into a nightmare of sly sexual harassment.

'Their bad behaviour went unnoticed, or was ignored by fellow passengers like Australian Andrew Hackett who chose to party hard with Tugga’s Mob.

'After all, they were in Europe for a good time, not a long time.

'And what a time it was, until Tugga’s fixation ultimately led to murder; a crime that went unpunished for 30 years.

'But few things remain hidden forever. The rediscovery of Judy’s hand-written diary’s sparks a trail of revenge that the original perpetrators never see coming, in Tugga's Mob, by Stephen Johnson.'

Source: Publisher's blurb.

'What if justice isn't enough?

'Schalk Lourens got out his phone and started filming, something Pieterse taught him years ago. Keep a record. Do it yourself, boykie, every time. That way you can be sure. Cover your arse. Don't trust any of them.

'Schalk began with Pieterse himself, what was left of him.

'Cape Town, South Africa.

'Retired police chief Piet Pieterse has been murdered, necklaced in fact. A tyre placed round his neck, doused with petrol, set alight. An execution from the apartheid era and one generally confined to collaborators. Who would target Pieterse this way, and why now?

'Veteran copy Schalk Lourens is trying to forget the past. But Pieterse was his old boss and when Schalk is put on the case, he finds the past has a way of infecting the present.

'Meanwhile, it's an election year. People are pinning their hopes on charismatic ANC candidate Gideon Radebe but there's opposition and in this volatile country, unrest is never far from the surface.

'Schalk must tread a difficult path between the new regime and the old, between the personal and the professional, between justice and revenge.

'This investigation will change his life, and could alter his county's future.'

Source: Publisher's blurb.

'Rome's Burning is a five-piece band with its roots in the 13th century; a line of musicians gifted with the magic-wielding Minstrel Tongue. For hundreds of years, Rome's Burning and its forebears have used music to protect the world from vampires, trolls, zombies, ghosts, banshees, dragons, water demons and other denizens of the dark. But after one hellish night in the suburbs of Budapest, Rome's Burning defeated a nest of vampires at a terrible cost; their lead singer and the love of his life are dead, Rome's Burning is no more. The survivors retreat as far as they can - to Melbourne, Australia - to deal with their grief, decide on their future, find a new leader and, as tradition demands, a new name. Before any of that happens, however, these minstrel-warriors have to find out why the dead keep rising everywhere they go. Everyone has secrets and some of them might explain what's going on. Perhaps the key is in the hands of Kitty Carrasco, the Melbourne funeral home beautician who doesn't know the secrets of her own past. Kitty and Cadaver is a story of grief, love, vampires, music, magic, secrets and the restless dead.'

Source: Publisher's blurb.

'An anthology based on the Martian invasion of earth imagined by H.G. Wells.

'With stories set in Australia of the past, present and future, this riveting and inventive collection features 16 of Australia's best science fiction, crime and speculative fiction authors: Kerry Greenwood, Carmel Bird, Jack Dann, Janeen Webb, Sean Williams, Angela Meyer, Lindy Cameron, Jenny Valentish, Narrelle M Harris, Lucy Sussex, Rick Kennett, Jason Franks, Dmetri Kakmi, Bill Congreve, Jason Fischer, and Kaaron Warren.'

Source: Publisher's blurb.

Vikki Petraitis took to writing true crime because, unlike crime fiction, it was so raw and it told the story of real people, real grief, real loss, real horror.

'A school teacher by day, Vikki had no idea that writing one book about one unsolved murder would give her a second career that has run alongside her chosen profession for 25 years.

She has researched, investigated and written about real Australian crimes, from the well-known to the obscure; and interviewed countless police, crime scene professionals, victims, survivors and families. She did ride-alongs with members of Victoria Police so she could learn about their most memorable cases, and found herself right there with them when a serial killer's third victim was found. Vikki spent time with the dog squad learning how the four-legged police officers are trained to work with their two-legged partners. And she's become biographer to two well-known former cops, and to one of the many victims of institutional child abuse. Her career as a true crime writer has resulted in 13 books and counting, with subjects and titles as diverse as The Frankston Serial Killer, Crime Scene Investigations, Forensics, Cops, Once a Copper: Brian 'the Skull' Murphy, and the one that started it all - The Phillip Island Murder.

Inside the Law is Vikki's life in crime; a collection of her favourite, personally influential, most memorable stories with a fresh narrative thread of the why, when and how she came to write them.'

Source: Publisher's blurb.

'The River Picnic was one of the biggest events that ever took place in Coongahoola, and even wilder than the street party the night Malcolm Fraser became Prime Minister. The adults spoke about it in whispers and only when they thought us kids were out of earshot. All I knew for sure, apart from the fact that Stu Bailey’s wife drowned that night in the Bagooli River, was that four times more babies than usual were born the following October and not all of them looked like their dads.

'A girl called Gracie.

'A small town called Coongahoola, with the dark Bagooli River running through it.

'The Bleeders — hundreds of ‘Believers’ who move in and set up on the banks of the river. Who start buying up the town, and winning souls.

'The River Children — born in the aftermath of the infamous River Picnic. They start to go missing, one after the other.

'Gracie Barrett, the naively savvy spokesperson for her chaotic family (promiscuous dad, angry mum, twins Lucky and Grub, Elijah the River Child and fervent, prayerful Grandma Bett), for the kids who are taken, for the lurking fear that locks down the town and puts everyone under suspicion.

'Gracie is funny and kind, bullied and anguished, and her life spirals out of control when she discovers she knows what no one else does: who is responsible.'

Source: Publisher's blurb.

'It's 1999. Indie musician Frank Capriano returns home to Perth for his mentor's funeral. His Duo Ex Machina bandmate and boyfriend, Milo, is with him. Together they must contend with a friend in financial crisis, unwelcoming family, old jealousies and a smuggling ring. A missing persons case soon turns to murder, and Frank and Milo are caught in the middle.'

Source: Publisher's blurb [2018 ed.].

'Duo Ex Machina has a new album on the verge of storming the 2004 charts. Frank and Milo's promotion tour in Melbourne is hijacked by a serial killer stalking gay men - one of them an old friend from Milo's past. Juggling their heavy PR schedule with Milo's hometown return and this sudden loss is bad enough. Finding out who the killer is - and his chosen final victim - will be so much worse.'

Source: Publisher's blurb [2018 ed.].