2024 Crime Highlights
2024 has been a stellar year for crime fiction, with fresh releases from chart-topping authors like Richard Osman and Michael Robotham, as well as sensational debuts from new authors. While it's hard to narrow down such an expansive genre, here are some of our 2024 crime fiction highlights, covering everything from cosy mysteries to outback noir!
🦘 Crime in the Australian landscape
The Ledge by Christian White
When human remains are discovered in the forests of regional Victoria, the police are baffled, the locals are shocked, and one group of old friends starts to panic. Their long-held secret is about to be uncovered.
It all began in 1999 when sixteen-year-old Aaron ran away from home, dragging his friends into an unforeseeable chain of events that no one escaped from unscathed . . .
In The Ledge, past and present run breathlessly, tensely parallel, leading to a cliff-hanger nobody will see coming. This is a mind-bending new novel from the master of the unexpected.
Read our staff review here.
Sanctuary by Garry Disher
Grace is a thief – a good one. She was taught by experts and she's been practising since she was a kid. She specialises in small, high-value items – stamps, watches – and she knows her Jaeger-LeCoultres from her Patek Philippes. But it's a solitary life, always watchful, always moving. It's not the life she wants.
Lying low after a run-in with an old associate, Grace walks into Erin Mandel's rural antiques shop and sees a chance for something different. A normal job. A place to call home.
But someone is looking for Erin. And someone's looking for Grace, too. And they are both, in their own ways, very dangerous men.
Read our staff review here.
The Valley by Chris Hammer
A controversial entrepreneur is murdered in a remote mountain valley, but this is no ordinary case. Nell Buchanan and Ivan Lucic are soon contending with cowboy lawyers, conmen, bullion thieves and grave robbers.
But it's when Nell discovers the victim is a close blood relative that the past begins to take on a looming significance.
What took place in The Valley all those years ago? What was Nell's mother doing there, and what was her connection to troubled young police officer Simmons Burnside? And why do the police hierarchy insist Ivan and Nell stay with the case despite an obvious conflict of interest?
🔎 Hard-boiled detectives
The Waiting by Michael Connelly
Rene Ballard and the LAPD's Open-Unsolved Unit find a DNA link to a serial killer known as the Pillowcase Rapist. But when Ballard and her team move in on their suspect, they encounter a baffling web of secrets and legal hurdles.
At the same time, Ballard's badge, gun and ID are stolen – a theft she can't report without giving her enemies in the department the ammunition they need to end her career. Forced to seek outside help, Ballard knocks on Harry Bosch's door.
Meanwhile, Ballard has taken on Patrol Officer Maddie Bosch, Harry's daughter, as a new volunteer. But Rene soon learns that Maddie has an ulterior motive for getting access to the city's library of lost souls.
Ballard is determined to maintain her focus on justice – but this cold case opens a Pandora's box . . .
The Dream by Iain Ryan
In a city gripped by recession and shattered by violent bank robberies, three lives collide in a web of corruption, ambition, and revenge.
Detective Bruno Karras, haunted by past secrets, receives mysterious photos of a blood-stained house. Amy Owens, a reluctant investigator entangled with the underworld, digs into the dark dealings of a wealthy businessman. Mike Nichols, a backroom player with big dreams, finds himself caught in the crossfire.
As the glittering façade of the Gold Coast crumbles during the 1982 Commonwealth Games, Bruno, Amy, and Mike uncover a sinister plot that threatens to consume them all.
The Creeper by Margaret Hickey
For the last decade, the small mountain town of Edenville in Victoria’s high country has been haunted by the horrific murders of five hikers up on Jagged Ridge. Also found dead near the scene was Bill ‘Creeper’ Durant, a bushland loner, expert deer-hunter, and a man with a known reputation for stalking campers . . .
Conclusion: murder-suicide. Case closed.
But as the ten-year anniversary of the massacre draws near, Detective Constable Sally White – the only officer at Edenville’s modest police station – finds herself drawn into the dark world of the notorious Durant family. Lex Durant, in particular, has started to publicly protest his brother's innocence and accuse the police of persecution.
As Sally combs the investigation to prove him wrong, it becomes all too clear that each murdered hiker had skeletons in their closet – and possible enemies in their past . . .
Read our staff review here.
🫣Gripping thrillers
Storm Child by Michael Robotham
The most painful of Evie Cormac's memories have been locked away, ever since she was held prisoner as a child – a child whose rescue captured hearts and headlines.
Forensic psychologist Cyrus Haven's mission is to guide her to something near normality. But today, on a British beach, seventeen bodies wash up in front of them. There is only one survivor, with two women still missing. And Evie's nightmares come roaring back . . .
Whatever happened all those years ago lies at the core of this new tragedy. Because these deaths are no accident. The same dark forces are reaching out, dragging her back into the storm.
Evie must now call upon Cyrus's unique skills, and her own, in their search for the missing pieces of this complex and haunting puzzle. But will that be enough to save them? And who will pay for the past?
Read our staff review here.
Pheasants Nest by Louise Milligan
Kate Delaney has made the biggest mistake of her life. After a girls' night out, she's now living every woman's worst nightmare. She finds herself brutalised, bound and gagged in the back of a car being driven god knows where by a man whose name she doesn't know, and petrified about what is in store for her.
As a journalist who is haunted by the crimes she's had to report over her career, Kate is terrifyingly familiar with the statistics of women who go missing – and the fear and trauma behind the headlines. She knows only too well how those stories usually end.
Kate can only hope the police will find her before it's too late, but she's aware a random crime is hardest to solve. As the clock ticks down, she tries to keep herself sane by escaping into memories of love and happy times together.
As the suspense escalates, Kate's boyfriend Liam is left behind, struggling with his shock, fear and desperation as the police establish a major investigation. The detectives face their own feelings of anguish and futility as they reflect on the cases they didn't solve in time and the victims they couldn't save. They know Kate's chances of survival diminish with every passing hour.
Read our staff review here.
Hotel Lucky Seven by Kotaro Isaka, translated by Brian Bergstrom
Nanao 'the unluckiest assassin in the world' has been hired to deliver a birthday present to a guest at a luxury Tokyo Hotel. It seems like a simple assignment but by the time he leaves the guest's room one man is dead and more will soon follow. Events spiral out of control as it becomes clear several different killers, with varying missions, are all taking a stay in the hotel at the same time. And they're all particularly interested in a young woman with a photographic memory, hiding out on one of the twenty floors.
Will Nanao find the truth about what's going on? And will he check out alive?
Read our staff review here.
Leave the Girls Behind by Jacqueline Bublitz
Nineteen years ago, Ruth-Ann Baker's childhood friend was murdered by convicted killer Ethan Oswald. Haunted by what happened, Ruth has long been convinced Oswald had other victims. But no one has ever believed her.
After dropping out of college and failing to prove her serial killer theory, Ruth is bartending when she hears that another young girl has gone missing from her home town. With Oswald now deceased, she begins to suspect he had an accomplice. A partner in crime who is still active today.
Crossing the globe from New York to New Zealand, Ruth unlocks parts of herself that she hasn't dared to revisit, bringing her perilously close to three different women. The deeper she delves, the more she can't shake the feeling that one of them knows the truth. About her childhood friend. About the missing girl. And, perhaps most dangerously of all, about Ruth herself . . .
Read our staff review here.
🧩Cosy crime
We Solve Murders by Richard Osman
Steve Wheeler is enjoying retired life. He does the odd bit of investigation work, but he prefers his familiar habits and routines: the pub quiz, his favourite bench, his cat waiting for him when he comes home. His days of adventure are over: adrenaline is daughter-in-law Amy’s business now.
Amy Wheeler thinks adrenaline is good for the soul. As a private security officer, she doesn’t stay still long enough for habits or routines. She’s currently on a remote island keeping world-famous author Rosie D’Antonio alive. Which was meant to be an easy job . . . Then a dead body, a bag of money and a killer with their sights on Amy have her sending an SOS to the only person she trusts.
A breakneck race around the world begins, but can Amy and Steve stay one step ahead of a deadly enemy?
The Death of Dora Black: A Petticoat Police Mystery by Lainie Anderson
Summer, Adelaide, 1917. The impeccably dressed Miss Kate Cocks might look more like a schoolmistress than a policewoman, but don't let that fool you. She's a household name, wrangling wayward husbands into repentance, seeing through deceptive clairvoyants, and rescuing young women (whether they like it or not) with the help of a five-foot cane and her sassy junior constable, Ethel Bromley.
When shop assistant Dora Black is found dead on a city beach, Miss Cocks and Ethel are ordered to stay out of the investigation and leave it to the men. But when Dora's workmate goes missing soon after, the women suspect something sinister, and determine to take matters into their own hands. After all, who knows Adelaide better than the indomitable Miss Cocks?
Read our staff review here.
It Takes a Town by Aoife Clifford
Everyone dies famous in a country town, but glamorous Vanessa Walton was a shining star. A celebrity since she was a child, Vanessa is back on the front page for all the wrong reasons; after a terrible storm she has been found dead at the bottom of her stairs.
At first her death seems to be a simple accident, but anonymous letters are discovered that suggest otherwise – and when 16-year-old Jasmine Landridge claims it is murder, she suddenly disappears. As the police begin to investigate, secrets are exposed and friendships unravel.
It will take a town to solve this crime, but what will be broken in the effort to piece together the truth?
Read our staff review here.
The Cryptic Clue by Amanda Hampson
Welcome back to Zig Zag Lane in the heart of Sydney's rag-trade district, where our intrepid tea ladies, Hazel, Betty and Irene, have their work cut out. Solving a murder, kidnapping and arson case, and outwitting an arch criminal, earned them the respect of a local police officer. Now he needs their assistance to help solve a plot that threatens national security.
As if that's not enough, Irene gets a coded message directing her to the spoils of a bank robbery, which sends the tea ladies on a treasure hunt with an unexpected outcome.
There's also trouble brewing within the walls of Empire Fashionwear, where an interloper threatens not just Hazel's job but the very role of tea lady. It's up to Hazel to convince her friends to abandon their trolleys and take action to save their livelihoods – before it's too late.
