CRIME
CRIME
LEFT BEHIND
Martine Kropkowski
PB $ 34.99
Two couples – Annabelle and Luke, Des and Julianni – embark on a camping trip to K’ gari, a picturesque island off Queensland’ s coast. Things have been tough lately. This holiday is just what they need – white sands, clear waters, a chance to decompress and reconnect. But there is an unnerving electricity in the air and Annabelle starts noticing strange occurrences. When an old friend of Luke’ s arrives, Annabelle’ s suspicions reach fever pitch. The island, an endlessly shifting landmass of sand, changing and changing again, will survive as it always has. But will they?
MISCHANCE CREEK: HIRSCH # 5
Garry Disher
PB $ 34.99
Local copper Hirsch isn’ t usually called on for emergency roadside assistance. But with all the other services fully stretched, it’ s Hirsch who has to grind his way out beyond the Mischance Creek ruins to where some clueless tourist has run into a ditch. As it turns out, though, Annika Nordrum isn’ t exactly a tourist. She’ s searching for the body of her mother, who went missing seven years ago. And the only sense in which she’ s clueless is the lack of information unearthed by the cops. Mischance Creek is the next in the Australian rural crime series by bestselling author Garry Disher.
LEGACY: MARTIN SCARSDEN # 4
Chris Hammer
PB $ 34.99
Martin Scarsden is on the run. Will the desert save him or bury him? Someone is targeting Martin Scarsden. They bomb his book launch and shoot up his hometown. Fleeing for his life, he learns that nowhere is safe, not even the outback. But who wants to kill him and why? Can he discover their deadly motives and turn the tables? In a dramatic finale, Martin finds his fate linked to the disgraced ex-wife of a football icon, a fugitive wanted for a decades-old murder, and two nineteenth-century explorers from a legendary expedition.
THE STOLEN: DECEPTION BAY # 2
Vikki Petraitis
PB $ 34.99
When a distraught mother calls the station to report her baby missing, Senior Detective Antigone and her trained police dog, Wozza, begin a race against time. In the middle of the frantic investigation, Antigone’ s mother, Dr Jilly Pollard, arrives for an unexpected visit and shares a tragic family secret, and Antigone’ s old boss, Bill Wheeler, returns to the helm, making the missing baby investigation harder every day. Antigone faces the questions: who’ s protecting the women? And what happens when we don’ t believe them? The Stolen is an unputdownable crime thriller.
SHADOW TICKET
Thomas Pynchon
PB $ 34.99
A private eye is catapulted on to a riotous and continenthopping journey that proves difficult to escape – the new novel from the visionary storyteller. Mikwaukee, 1932. Private eye Hicks McTaggart is out on what should be a routine case, locating and bringing back the heiress of a Wisconsin cheese fortune. Before he knows it, he’ s been shanghaied onto a transoceanic liner, ending up in Hungary. By the time Hicks catches up with her, he will find himself entangled with Nazis, Soviet agents, British counterspies, and more. Will he ever find his way back again to Milwaukee and the normal world, which may no longer exist, is another question.
LAST ONE OUT
Jane Harper
PB $ 34.99
‘ He had been here, that was clear from the marks in the dust. And he had been alone.’ In a dying town, Ro Crowley waits for her son on the evening of his 21st birthday. But Sam never comes home. His footprints in the dust of three abandoned houses offer the only clue to his final movements. Five long years later, Ro returns to Carralon Ridge for the annual memorial of Sam’ s disappearance. The skeletal community is now an echo of itself, having fractured under the pressure of the coal mine operating on its outskirts. But Ro still wants answers. Only a few people remain. Do they know the truth?
shop online at hillofcontentbookshop. com or hillofcontentbalmain. com. au Summer Reading Guide 2025 | 11