Our crime specialist shares 10 great crime reads to look out for this month.

CRIME BOOK OF THE MONTH

Stone Town by Margaret Hickey

A teenage boy takes a girl and her sister to Stone Town’s eerie bushland in the dark of night, in the hopes of impressing her with the alarming shrieks of a Barking Owl – but they find the dead body of local developer Aidan Sleeth instead. Sleeth’s death by gunshot sees local Senior Sergeant Mark Ariti working the case with two homicide cops from Adelaide who are, Mark thinks, too distracted by another case on their radar: missing police officer Natalie Whitsed, who disappeared after tracking the young wife of a gangland boss. All of Australia is following Natalie’s case, and now it’s interfering in Mark’s business too, not least when his sometime friend, Assistant Commissioner Angelo Conti, calls up with information that will shed new light on what’s happening in Stone Town.

Mark’s aware that nothing is cut and dried in the world of crime, and the events of Margaret Hickey’s previous bestseller, Cutters End, are still playing on his mind. Sleeth was a property developer in a place where land is worth more than just the money you can get for it – and rural Australian towns in crime fiction are not known for taking these kind of things lightly.

Hickey takes the genre of rural crime and runs with it: country fairs, a bush telegraph faster than police radio, long- held secrets, and extended drives to brutal crime scenes. Hickey’s work is gloriously free of stereotypes, leading to intriguing characters searching for the truth – or trying to hide it. Settle in with Stone Town, and if you hear a scream in the distance, it’s surely just a Barking Owl, dear reader – don’t you worry at all.

NEW CRIME FICTION

A Stranger on Board by Cameron Ward

Eager for work and a distraction from her persistent memories, Sarah is not long out of the Royal Marines when she’s hired for a security detail on a luxury superyacht. It should be a brief job: two weeks, skeleton crew, get the yacht to its owner across the Atlantic. Things start to go wrong before they even leave their Spanish port – and it doesn’t stop once they’re on their way. There’s reason to turn back, but with money like this on offer, nothing, no matter the danger, will stop the yacht from reaching its destination. Then one of the crew vanishes, and though her training hasn’t prepared her for this, Sarah knows she’s the only one with any chance of keeping them afloat. A tense, high-powered thriller with rough waves and a firm hand keeping you onboard.

Lying Beside You by Michael Robotham

It’s been a year since Evie Cormac – a young woman with a traumatic past and the uncanny ability to tell if people are lying – moved into a room in forensic psychiatrist Cyrus Haven’s house. It’s been a good year, so to speak, but things are about to change.

Cyrus is the sole survivor of his brother Elias’ murder of his family. But it’s now 20 years later, and a reformed, medicated Elias is back. As Cyrus and Evie contemplate this disruption to their lives, Cyrus is called to a case: a dead man whose adult daughter is missing, presumed taken. Soon after, another woman vanishes, and Evie’s new job means she’s one of the last people to see her alive. Few know how to operate in the world of secrets and death as well as Cyrus and Evie, and in Michael Robotham’s latest gripping bestseller-to-be, they’ll do anything to change the outcomes for others– the way they couldn’t for themselves.

The Map of Night by Kimberley Starr

As I’m writing this, Australia has just voted in a new political party; as readers start Kimberley Starr’s newest book, a different election is looming. Astronomer Lucy Rutherford is not looking forward to the role of being a politician’s wife, and she has a plan to leave her husband, Justin – once he’s elected, at least. For now, she’s happy being distracted by the refurbishment of a 100-year-old telescope in Victoria’s Yarra Valley. When Lucy vanishes a week before polling day, an angry Justin thinks she’s skipped out on him early, but their daughter, Gabby – 11 years old and more observant than many give her credit for– thinks nobody’s taking her mother’s disappearance seriously enough. Which leaves just one person to do so – Gabby. A tense, unstoppable journey filled with wide skies and small-town lies.

Keep Her Sweet by Helen Fitzgerald

Helen FitzGerald is one of the most unique voices in Australian (slash- Glaswegian) crime, and her energetic, light writing style makes what happens between the pages of her books that much more shocking to read. Recent empty- nesters Penny and Andeep move to Ballarat with a plan for their new lives, only to have it all upended by the arrival of their two grown daughters, Asha and Camille. Their toxic relationship is claustrophobic in the downsized house, and family therapist Joy is summoned to help. Some people, however, are beyond anyone’s help. This is a darkly funny, entirely gripping psychological thriller from the author of the bestselling novel The Cry.

Out of Breath by Anna Snoekstra

Josephine is someone who’s always in need of an escape route – from her traumatic childhood, from her failing London career, from a relationship in Sydney – and the rugged terrain of northwest Australia seems as good a place as any to end up, picking mangoes to extend her visa. The harsh conditions on the farm lead to a tragedy that forces Jo to run once more, and the idyllic off-grid community nearby might just be her final stop. The more time she spends there, the more doubts bubble to the surface, and soon there will be nowhere to hide from all that she has run from. This book simmers like outback heat, with disquiet and beauty on every page.

Conviction by Frank Chalmers

It’s 1976. A hot train is on its way to Royalton in the middle of Queensland. Detective Ray Windsor is about to start a new job after a less-than-stellar exit from his old one, and his new colleagues aren’t forthcoming with the niceties. He’s barely set foot in town when he’s sent to investigate the brutal death of a young girl, one the local cops are treating with minimal enthusiasm or care. Prejudice against those Not From Here – which very much means Ray, but even more so those who aren’t white – sees the case stall, despite it being the second murder in only a few months. Fighting the corruption that is rotting Queensland’s police to its core, Ray and his new partner, Arshag, are the only ones who can find out what is happening and put a stop to it in this red-dust-gritty thriller.

Criminals by James O’Loghlin

There are a lot of different ways to become a criminal: out of desperation, by accident – and for fun. When heroin addict Dean robs the Blacktown Leagues Club at gunpoint, he’s aiming to make off with enough to change his life and get clean. But Sarah, the somewhat-ex-cop behind the bar battling her own demons, recognises him, and now Dean’s in for a bad time. Meanwhile, Mary, drinking at the bar and bitterly contemplating her own life, thinks crime looks like it could pay after all. Three people, all connected by one crime and all of them standing at the precipice of being bad or good – as if it’s ever that clear-cut in crime fiction. A wise and funny book by one of Australia’s best-loved media personalities.

The Lover by Helene Flood

Interviewed by Norwegian police after the death of their upstairs neighbour Jorgen, husband and wife Asmund and Rikke are happy to disclose all they know to the authorities. Unless, of course, there was something you couldn’t admit in front of your husband. Rikke is hiding the real truth – that she and Jorgen were having an affair – and only wants some time to come clean to Asmund. But the longer she waits, the longer she continues to live in an apartment building with a killer on the loose and residing within its walls. An unnerving, claustrophobic psychological thriller.

The Retreat by Sarah Pearse

When setting up a wellness retreat on a beautiful island, there are a few things you need: glorious healthy food, places to relax, yoga pavilions. And a few things you should avoid, for example: building said retreat on an island where teenagers were murdered and the locals have declared the land cursed. After a woman seemingly falls to her death at this retreat where she was not a guest, Detective Elin Warner is called in, and it becomes alarmingly and swiftly clear that this won’t be the last time death visits the island. A book that builds suspense much as the weather above the island builds clouds, this will hook you in and leave you nowhere to run.

Also available this month:

Denise Mina’s Confidence; Gerwin vander Werf’s The Hitchhiker (translated by David Colmer); Karin Slaughter’s Girl, Forgotten; and Kathy Reichs’ Cold Cold Bones.