Crime
The best new crime reads in June
Our crime specialist shares 9 great crime reads to look out for this month.
CRIME BOOK OF THE MONTH
Nancy Business by R.W.R. McDonald
Four months after 12-year-old Tippy Chan, her uncle Pike and his boyfriend Devon started The Nancys – an investigative team that solved the brutal murder of Tippy’s teacher – a new case blows up, quite literally, right nearby. Riverstone, Tippy’s New Zealand home town, is rocked by an explosion near the Airbnb home Pike and Devon…
Literary thrillers to read in the winter months
If you yearn for dark, tense and moody stories in the colder months, we recommend some of the most outstanding recent literary thrillers. Our picks span disaster novels, psychological tales, near-future dystopias, gothic contemporary fiction, historical thrillers and more.
The End of Men by Christina Sweeney-Baird
Glasgow, 2025. Dr Amanda Maclean is called to treat a young man with a mild fever. Within three hours he dies. The mysterious illness sweeps through the hospital with deadly speed. The victims are…
The best new crime reads in May
This month, Julia Jackson is stepping in as our crime specialist to share 10 great crime reads to look out for this month.
CRIME BOOK OF THE MONTH
Before You Knew My Name by Jacqueline Bublitz
This stunning debut is one of the best books I’ve read this year (so far). Melbourne-based author Jacqueline Bublitz has crafted a haunting story about grief, limbo, transition and friendship that’s by far the most literary of this month’s crime picks. Echoing Alice Sebold’s…
The best new crime reads in April
Our crime specialist shares 10 great crime reads to look out for this month.
CRIME BOOK OF THE MONTH
The Chase by Candice Fox
At a prison in Nevada, the annual friendly baseball gamebetween the officers and the minimum-security inmates is due to take place. A bus load of family members is coming to cheer on the guards, as they have done every year for the past decade or so. Only this year, someone knows they’re coming. This year, someone…
The best new crime reads in March
Our crime specialist shares 11 great crime reads to look out for this month.
CRIME BOOK OF THE MONTH
Long, Long Afternoon by Inga Vesper
In a picture-perfect house in 1959, model housewife Joyce Haney goes to the mall for some shopping, returns home, and then vanishes, leaving behind nothing except a bloodstain on the kitchen floor, a screaming baby, and a terrified young daughter.
Detective Mick Blanke is new to the region, missing his old hood of Brooklyn and…
The best new crime reads in February
Our crime specialist shares 9 great crime reads to look out for this month.
CRIME BOOK OF THE MONTH
The Spiral by Iain Ryan
I could tell you that Iain Ryan’s The Spiral is an immersive, captivating crime book, but that wouldn’t be enough to explain it. I could say it’s a twisted, psychological fever dream, but that’s not quite it. I could tell you it’s an Australian campus thriller, and that wouldn’t be wrong, but it’s not quite right…
The best new crime reads in November & December
CRIME BOOK OF THE MONTH
True West by David Whish-Wilson (available 5 November)
If you want to get truly knocked about by a book, True West is what you want in front of you. Set in Western Australia in 1988, this is the visceral tale of Lee Southern, a young man driving south, away from a bad life he’s literally set aflame, feeling hopeful that he’s going towards something better. With a freshly set-up tow rig and, frankly, minimal expertise…
Eight of our favourite psychological thrillers from the first half of 2019
byThe days are short, the nights are long, dark and chilly. What better time to curl up indoors in the warm with the best psychological thrillers of the year so far?
We’ve put together a list of some of our favourite recommendations for all those crime and thriller fans out there to sink their teeth into.
An Anonymous Girl by Greer Hendricks and Sarah Pekkanen
Jess Farris signs up to a psychology study conducted by the mysterious Dr Shields, thinking…
The best new crime reads in May
CRIME BOOK OF THE MONTH
Furious Hours: Murder, Fraud and the Last Trial of Harper Lee by Casey Cep
Harper Lee – author of the slightly well known To Kill a Mockingbird – was by Truman Capote’s side when he wrote the brilliant work of fictionalised nonfiction, and arguably the first ‘true crime’ tale, In Cold Blood. After the copious notes and interviews she had completed for Capote, she thought that, perhaps, she could write her own true-crime story…
The best new crime reads in April
CRIME BOOK OF THE MONTH
Eight Lives by Susan Hurley
When a young Vietnamese-Australian doctor makes a medical breakthrough, inventing a drug that could essentially help broken immune systems fix themselves, everything seems as golden as the name bestowed upon him: David Tran, Golden Boy. But seven months after David appears on television, celebrating the financial backing that will lead to testing, trials, and a hopeful future, he is dead. How and why he died are the questions everyone is…
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