AustLit

'Evil is at play in a South African game reserve.

'A poacher vanishes into thin air, defying logic and baffling ace tracker Mia Greenaway.

'Meanwhile Captain Sannie van Rensburg, still reeling from a personal tragedy, is investigating the disappearance of two young girls who locals fear have been abducted for use in sinister traditional medicine practices.

But poachers are also employing witchcraft, paying healers for potions they believe will make them invisible and bulletproof.

When a tourist goes missing, Mia and Sannie must work together to confront their own demons and challenge everything they believe, and to follow a bloody trail that seems to vanish at every turn.'(Publication summary)

'A man selfless in the face of threat. Courageous in the face of terror. Generous in the face of suffering. And humble in the face of an honour bestowed.' Dame Quentin Bryce

'On 24 August 2010, in battle in Afghanistan, Corporal Daniel Keighran risked his life in a hail of gunfire to save his fellow soldiers. His actions saw him awarded the Victoria Cross for Australia, making him the 99th Australian to receive our country's highest award for bravery.

'Courage Under Fire tells of Daniel's unlikely journey to become one of Australia's most celebrated soldiers.

'Growing up was tough for Daniel. When he was eleven, his father showed up in his life, for the first time, with a gunshot wound to the stomach. He relocated his son, daughter and their mother 400 kilometres away from their loving grandparents and a coastal home to a shack with a dirt floor in outback Queensland. From then on, Daniel fought to maintain a sense of order and purpose amid the chaos of family violence and criminal activity.

'Inspired by his much-loved grandfather, a WWII veteran, Daniel joined the army. There he found the structure that was missing from his teen years. Although just 17, Daniel adapted quickly to the demands of life in the military, always willing to learn, always wanting to grow, always seeking to emulate the example of his grandfather.

'Courage Under Fire is an outstanding military memoir, packed with tales of multiple tours, accounts of extraordinary camaraderie, and a reflection on the unseen cost of service. Most of all it is a testament to the idea that anything is possible if you know what you stand for.' (Publication summary)

'Greed.

'Joanne Flack is on the run - suspected of stealing a rare African plant thought to be extinct and worth millions of dollars.

'Danger.

'Sonja Kurtz is hired by the CIA to hunt down Joanne and find the link between the missing plant and a terrorist group hiding out in South Africa.

'Treachery.

'Joanne is a member of the Pretoria Cycad and Firearms Appreciation Society who take it upon themselves to track down the plant ... and the traitor in their midst who is willing to kill for it.' (Publication summary)

'German South West Africa 1906, Australian horse trader Cyril Blake is executed in cold blood by the Kaiser's soldiers.

Sydney, the present day. Blake's great nephew, recently widowed Nick Eatwell, is approached by South African journalist Susan Vidler who is investigating his ancestor's mysterious demise.

Intrigued and looking for distraction, Nick discovers a long-lost manuscript which tells how Blake stayed in South Africa after serving in the Anglo-Boer War and joined the Nama people in their rebellion against the Germans in South West Africa, modern-day Namibia.

In Munich, historian Anja Berghoff, researching the origin of the wild 'ghost' horses of Namibia, stumbles across intriguing letters from Irish-German spy Claire Martin, with whom Blake had an affair.

As Nick and Anja's paths cross, they find themselves racing through southern Africa, and through time, on the trail of a legend.

But they're not alone. Someone else is chasing these ghosts of the past, looking for clues for a hidden treasure worth killing for.'

Source: Publisher's blurb.

'Afghanistan veteran Sean Bourke's world explodes when an IED detonates in South Africa's Sabi Sand Game Reserve.

'On a routine anti-poaching patrol, Sean and his tracker dog Benny watch in horror as over-eager rookie Tumi Mabasa is almost killed and her dog gravely injured in the explosion.

'Along with Tumi and best mate Craig Hoddy, Sean is determined to hunt down the elusive bombmaker who has introduced this destructive weapon to the war on poaching.

'But Sean is his own worst enemy. Haunted by nightmares of the war and racked with guilt from driving away his ex-wife, Christine, he soon discovers she and Craig are in the midst of an intense affair.

'And there's another enemy at play...

'As bombs target Sean's team, can he get himself back on track and win the fight for Africa's wildlife - and Christine - before it's too late?'

Source: Publisher's blurb.

'One mission... countless enemies.

'Former mercenary Sonja Kurtz is hired by business tycoon Julianne Clyde-Smith to head an elite squad. Their aim: to take down Africa's top poaching kingpins and stop at nothing to save its endangered wildlife.

'But as the body count rises, it becomes harder for Sonja to stay under the radar as she is targeted by an underworld syndicate known as The Scorpions.

'When her love interest, safari guide and private investigator Hudson Brand, is employed to look into the death of an alleged poacher at the hands of Sonja's team, she is forced to ask herself if Julianne's crusade has gone too far.

'From South Africa's Kruger National Park to the Serengeti of Tanzania, Sonja realises she is fighting a war on numerous fronts, against enemies known and unknown.

'So who can Sonja really trust?'  (Publication summary)

'A very eager - and rather naive - Australian lawyer, Kerry Maxwell, flies into South Africa to volunteer at a wildlife orphanage run by notorious vet, Graham Baird.

Graham is as jaded and reckless as Kerry is law-abiding and optimistic. When Kerry arrives at the animal sanctuary it's to the news that Graham is imprisoned in Mozambique following a shootout with elephant poachers. In the gunfight he killed the brother of corrupt politician and poaching kingpin Fidel Costa.

Kerry's earnest sense of justice takes her to Massingir to help Graham with his case, and into a world of danger. Kidnapped, chased, attacked and betrayed, Kerry learns the bitter truth about the complexities and deadly nature of the war on poaching.

Even the motivations of well-meaning charities, wealthy donors and private zoos are not all they appear.

Kerry's perilous entanglement may be what Graham needs to shake off his drunken cynicism and rejoin the fight for Africa's animals, but is it enough, and in time, to stop Costa's quest for revenge..' (Source: Publisher's blurb)

'An assassination. A stolen baby. A race to the death.

'Durban, South Africa, a car is hijacked. Suzanne Fessey fights back and kills one thief but the other, wounded, escapes with her baby on board.

'In pursuit of the missing vehicle and baby are helicopter tracker pilot Nia Carras from the air, and Mike Dunn, a nearby wildlife researcher, from the ground.

'But South Africa's police have bigger problems: a bomb has gone off in Durban, killing the visiting American Ambassador, and chaos has descended on Kwa-Zulu Natal.

'As the missing baby is tracked through the wild game reserves from Zululand to Zimbabwe, Mike and Nia come to realise that the war on terror has invaded their part of the world.'

Source: Publication blurb.

'A body. A cover-up. A buried secret.

'Sonja Kurtz - former soldier, supposedly retired mercenary - is in Vietnam carrying out a personal revenge mission when her daughter sends a call for help.

'Emma, a student archaeologist on a dig at the edge of Namibia's Etosha National Park, has discovered a body dating back to the country's liberation war of the 1980s.

'The remains of the airman, identified as Hudson Brand, are a key piece of a puzzle that will reveal the location of a modern-day buried treasure - a find people will kill for.

'Sonja returns to the country of her birth to find Emma, who since her call has gone missing.

'Former CIA agent Hudson Brand is very much alive and is also drawn back to Namibia to finally solve a decades-old mystery whose clues are entombed in an empty corner of the desert.'

Source: Publisher's blurb.

'Safari guide and private investigator Hudson Brand hunts people, not animals. He's on the trail of Linley Brown who's been named as the beneficiary of a life insurance policy.

'Linley's friend, Kate, supposedly died in a fiery car accident in Zimbabwe, but Kate's sister wants to believe it is an elaborate fraud.

'South African detective Sannie van Rensburg is also looking for Linley, as well as a serial killer who has been murdering prostitutes on Sannie's watch. Top of her list of suspects is Hudson Brand.

'Sannie and Hudson cross paths and swords as they track the elusive Linley from South Africa and Zimbabwe to the wilds of Kenya's Masai Mara game reserve.' (Publication summary)

'Deep underground in the Eureka mine, South Africa's zama zamas illegally hunt for gold. King of this brutal underworld is Wellington Shumba - a man who rules his pirate miners through fear of torture and death. Running Eureka's legitimate operation is former recce commando Cameron McMurtrie. When one of his engineers is taken hostage, Cameron does not hesitate to mastermind a dramatic rescue - and finish it off with a manhunt for Wellington. That is until corporate interference from the mine's Australian head office, in the shape of ambitious high-flyer Kylie Hamilton, gets in his way. Doctor Hamilton is visiting South Africa supposedly to finalise a new mine on the border of the famed Kruger National Park, but instead she and Cameron are forced into a partnership to fend off an environmental war above ground, and a deadly battle with a ruthless killer below. Cameron and Kylie have become Wellington's prey. They must unite - their lives depend on it.' (Publisher's blurb)

'Three families - the Bryants, the Quilter-Phippses and the Ngwenyas - share a history as complex and bloody as Zimbabwe itself.

'Dedicated conservationists Paul and Philippa Bryant are struggling to save their farm and small herd of endangered black rhinos from seizure by corrupt government minister Emmerson Ngwenya. Twin brothers, ex-soldier Braedan and environmentalist Tate Quilter-Phipps join the fight.

'But when the brothers fall in love with the same woman, Natalie Bryant, their rivalry threatens to put the lives of all involved at risk. And with Emmerson vowing to stop at nothing until he gets what he wants, a bloody showdown seems inevitable.

'In the broken country that is Zimbabwe, only the strongest can survive.' (Publisher's blurb)

'After a failed assassination attempt on the president of Zimbabwe, ex-soldier turned mercenary Sonja Kurtz is on the run and heads for her only place of refuge, the Okavango Delta in the heart of Botswana. She's looking to rekindle a romance with her childhood sweetheart, safari camp manager Sterling Smith, and desperately wants a fresh start and to leave her perilous warrior lifestyle behind.

But Sonja discovers her beloved Delta is on the brink of destruction. She is recruited as an "eco-commando" in a bid to halt a project that will destroy forever the Delta's fragile network of swamps and waterways.

Soon Sonja finds herself caught in a deadly web of intrigue involving Sterling, the handsome Martin Steele - her mercenary commander, and a TV heartthrob and wildlife documentary presenter "Coyote" Sam Chapman who blunders out of the bush in a reality show gone wrong.

Instead of escaping her violent past, Sonja is now surrounded by men who are relying on her killer instincts to save the day. Where she came to find peace, she finds war... and it is not just the survival of the Delta that is at stake.' (From the publisher's website.)

'In Afghanistan, sometimes all that stands between coalition troops and death or serious injury is a dog. Highly trained dogs and their handlers search for improvised explosive devices or hidden weapons out on patrol with combat troops. It's a perilous job, often putting them right in the firing line, and making them high priority targets for the Taliban insurgents they're fighting.

'Shane Bryant, a former Australian Army dog handler, has spent the past four years in Afghanistan working with elite American special forces alongside his faithful dog. War Dogs is his story - a riveting account of the hidden war in the mountains and cities of the world's most dangerous conflict, and the comradeship between man and dog that has saved numerous lives.' (From the publisher's website.)

'Alex Tremain is a pirate in trouble. The two women in his life - one of them his financial adviser, the other his diesel mechanic - have left him. He's facing a mounting tide of debts and his crew of modern-day buccaneers, a multi-national band of ex-military cut-throats, is getting restless.

They don't all share his dream of going legit, but what Alex really wants is to re-open the five-star resort hotel which once belonged to his Portuguese mother and English father on the Island of Dreams, off the coast of Mozambique.

A chance raid on a wildlife smuggling ship sets the Chinese triads after him and, to add to his woes, corporate lawyer Jane Humphries lands, literally, in his lap. Another woman is the last thing Captain Tremain needs right now - especially one whose lover is a ruthless shipping magnate backed up by a deadly bunch of contract killers.

What Alex really needs is one last big heist - something valuable enough to fulfil his dreams and set him and his men up for life.

When the South African government makes a controversial decision to reinstitute the culling of elephants in its national parks, Alex finds the answer to his dilemma - three tonnes of ivory. (Publisher's blurb)