Archives de catégorie : Crime & Thrillers

AFTER YOU WERE GONE de Vikki Wakefield

What happens to a family when a child goes missing? How far would you go to learn the truth? AFTER YOU WERE GONE is Vikki Wakefield’s first psychological thriller.

AFTER YOU WERE GONE
by Vikki Wakefield
Text Publishing Australia, September 2022

In a busy street market, Abbie lets go of six-year-old Sarah’s hand. She isn’t a bad mother, just exhausted. When she turns around, her daughter isn’t there. After a full-scale search and a highprofile investigation, there is still no trace of Sarah.
Six years later, Abbie is in love and getting married. Her family, despite their problems, have seen her through her worst imaginings—only Abbie’s mother seems unwilling to let her move on. Her fragile peace is constantly threatened: not knowing what happened to Sarah is like living with a curse.
Then a phone call from an unknown number offers closure. A man claims to know what happened to Sarah, but if Abbie tells anyone or fails to follow instructions, she’ll never find out. What price must Abbie pay to know the truth?

Vikki Wakefield writes fiction for young adults and adults. Her work explores family, class and relationships in a contemporary setting. Her novels All I Ever Wanted, Friday Brown, Inbetween Days and Ballad for a Mad Girl have been shortlisted for numerous awards. This is How We Change the Ending won Book of the Year: Older Readers, Children’s Book Council Awards, 2020. AFTER YOU WERE GONE is her first novel for adults. Vikki lives in Adelaide, Australia.

THE WAY IT IS NOW de Garry Disher

Set in a beach-shack town an hour from Melbourne, THE WAY IT IS NOW tells the story of a burnt-out cop named Charlie Deravin.

THE WAY IT IS NOW
by Garry Disher
Text Publishing (Australia), November 2021

Twenty years ago Charlie Deravin’s mother went missing near the family beach shack—believed murdered; body never found. His father has lived under a cloud of suspicion ever since. Now Charlie’s back living in the shack in Menlo Beach, on disciplinary leave from his job with the police sex-crimes unit, and permanent leave from his marriage. After two decades worrying away at the mystery of his mother’s disappearance, he’s run out of leads. Then the skeletal remains of two people are found in the excavation of a new building site—and the past comes crashing in on Charlie.
THE WAY IT IS NOW is the enthralling new novel by Garry Disher, one of Australia’s most loved and celebrated crime writers.

Garry Disher has published over fifty titles across multiple genres. With a growing international reputation for his best-selling crime novels, he has won four German and three Australian awards for best crime novel of the year, and been longlisted twice for a British CWA Dagger award. In 2018 he received the Ned Kelly Lifetime Achievement Award.

OCEAN STATE de Stewart O’Nan

Set in a working-class town on the Rhode Island coast, O’Nan’s latest is a crushing, beautifully written, and profoundly compelling novel about sisters, mothers, and daughters, and the terrible things love makes us do.

OCEAN STATE
by Stewart O’Nan
Grove Press, March 2022
(via The Gernert Company)

In the first line of OCEAN STATE, we learn that a high school student was murdered, and we find out who did it. The story that unfolds from there with incredible momentum is thus one of the build-up to and fall-out from the murder, told through the alternating perspectives of the four women at its heart. Angel, the murderer, Carol, her mother, and Birdy, the victim, all come alive on the page as they converge in a climax both tragic and inevitable. Watching over it all is the retrospective testimony of Angel’s younger sister Marie, who reflects on that doomed autumn of 2009 with all the wisdom of hindsight.
Angel and Birdy love the same teenage boy, frantically and single mindedly, and are compelled by the intensity of their feelings to extremes neither could have anticipated. O’Nan’s expert hand paints a fully realized portrait of these women, but also weaves a compelling and heartbreaking story of working-class life in Ashaway, Rhode Island. Propulsive, moving, and deeply rendered, OCEAN STATE is a masterful novel by one of our greatest storytellers.

Stewart O’Nan’s haunting and fleet Ocean State tunnels deeply into the heady, hard lives of the vivid young women at its center. Half-broken and full of longing, these women move us deeply. As the story hurtles toward an act of violence that feels both impossible and inexorable, we find ourselves wanting to stop and protect all of them.”Megan Abbott

One of Stewart O’Nan’s many gifts is a keen and unflinching eye lit with an abiding compassion for his characters, all of which is on display in his mesmerizing new novel, Ocean State. Set in the forgotten streets of post-industrial, blue collar Rhode Island, this timely and gritty tale takes us deeply into the lives of girls and women who must navigate the kind of loss that can either break or strengthen the ties that bind us all. Ocean State is a gem glittering in the darkness.”Andre Dubus III

Stewart O’Nan is out to break your heart in the most beautiful way. He is writing with his full power unleashed. This book is a classic.”Luis Alberto Urrea

Stewart O’Nan is the author of numerous books, including Wish You Were Here, Everyday People, In the Walled City, The Speed Queen, and Emily, Alone. His 2007 novel, Last Night at the Lobster, was a national bestseller and a finalist for the Los Angeles Times Book Prize. He was born and raised in Pittsburgh, where he lives with his family.

BRIMSTONE de Russel Hutchings

How far would you go to protect your country?
“Think:
Jason Bourne meets Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy meets Sicario.” – Graeme Coleman, executive producer

BRIMSTONE: A Mantra 6 Thriller
by Russel Hutchings
Big Sky (Australia), December 2021
(via Randle Editorial)

John Devereaux, an SAS Warrant Officer, is seconded to the Australian Secret Intelligence Service and handed a mission that will test him to his very core – both professionally and personally. The operationally deniable mission: infiltrate into Cambodia via parachute in the dead of night and assassinate two high-value targets, alone, and with two dozen enemy soldiers in his way. From the relentless jungles of Cambodia to the chaotic civilian-filled streets of Sydney and Bangkok, to the secretive dens of Moscow and the extravagant French Riviera, explosive SAS and ASIS action uncovers a shadowy and powerful organisation that brings us face to face with the Russian Mafia, and an assassin getting intimate. Unbeknown to Devereaux, the Director-General of the Secret Intelligence Service, Magnus Webb, is testing him for a far more important role – to head an off-the-books clandestine cell buried deep inside this secret organisation and known only as MANTRA-6. Devereaux’s mission has only just begun …
The writing is direct, engrossing and thundering along at breakneck speed, much like its lead protagonist, for fans of Chris Ryan, Andy McNab, Robert Ludlum and classic James Bond style espionage.
Despite the book not being released yet, there is already a feature film in development, with director Storm Ashwood and producers Brenden Hill (former Dreamworks – Instinct) and David Perkins (Fast and Furious: Tokyo Drift) already attached.

Born in Perth, Russel Hutchings is a former SAS Warrant Officer with over 20 years of service in the Regiment. He has operated in many of the world’s troubled areas and most recently performed a role as a military advisor to a US based company operating in Afghanistan. He draws on decades of experience in the world’s most terrifying war zones, and uses his experience of collecting intelligence for national security to write an authentic and high octane trilogy, Mantra 6.

THE MADNESS LOCKER d’Eddie Russell

A brilliant dual narrative, historical crime fiction title inspired by a true unsolved murder case, asking questions about integrity, identity and if there is such a thing as ‘the right side’ in the fog of war.This novel has all the rich detail needed for enthralling historical fiction, with a fascinating mystery at its heart, culminating in a heartracing twist.

THE MADNESS LOCKER
by Eddie Russell
Big Sky (Australia), October 2021
(via Randle Editorial)

In the early hours of Christmas morning in 1986, the body of an older woman was discovered inside a wheelie bin in the eastern suburbs of Sydney, Australia. There were no clues and no suspects. After an extensive investigation, the police admitted defeat and filed it as a cold case. It is a case that taunts them still. Eddie Russell’s debut conjures a plausible motive to this strange crime in this artfully wrought, page-turning story which takes the reader from Utrecht to Berlin, to Auschwitz, and finally, to a sleepy neighbourhood in Sydney, Australia.
Autumn, 1986. Ruth, a Jewish woman in her later years, is grieving the death of her husband. His old friend, a widowed neighbour called Sam, offers her comfort. But Ruth feels there is something off about Sam. Whatever story he’s peddling, she doesn’t buy it. She’s determined to uncover the truth about how he came to find himself in Sydney and where his real loyalties lie.
Winter 1941. Two young girls living under the tyranny of a brutal and dictatorial Nazi regime experience a fateful twist, leading one to escape to freedom and the other to be subjected to incarceration in a concentration camp, and how she got there is buried in the depths of her memory. But remembering is key. Somebody is responsible for her ending up in the depths of hell. And, if she survives, she will make that person pay if it’s the last thing she does…
In an extraordinary story of hidden identity, revenge and deception, THE MADNESS LOCKER is a chilling reminder that the truth will always catch up with you someday.

Eddie Russell has a degree in English literature and Masters in Creative writing. Born and raised in the then English colony of East Africa to English parents, he immigrated to Australia to complete his schooling before moving to San Diego to work in technology. He is now settled back in Australia with his life partner and following his passion to write. THE MADNESS LOCKER is his first novel. You can watch Eddie introduce the novel here.