Showing results by publisher "Bolinda Publishing Pty Ltd" in Mystery, Thriller & Suspense

When Olga’s friend Lara becomes a grandmother, Olga helps out whenever she can. After all, it’s a big imposition on Lara, looking after her bereaved daughter and the baby. And the new mother is not exactly considerate. But smouldering beneath Olga’s sensible support and loving generosity is a deep jealous need to be the centre of Lara’s attention and affection - a need that soon becomes a consuming, dangerous and ultimately tragic obsession.

The festive month is kicking off in style, and Pearl is rushed off her feet with her restaurant, The Whitstable Pearl. She’s also busy planning her own family Christmas and providing mulled wine for a charity church fundraiser when Christmas cards begin arriving all over town - filled with spiteful messages from an anonymous writer. Pearl’s curiosity is piqued, but having pledged not to take on a case at her detective agency before Christmas, she reluctantly agrees that Canterbury’s DCI Mike McGuire should take over, poisoned pen cards are after all a matter for the police.

It’s springtime, and Whitstable is emerging from hibernation. While neither the restaurant nor detective agency is too busy, Pearl resolves to spend some time at the family allotment. But her best friend, Nathan, has persuaded one of his favourite actresses to open the May Day festivities at Whitstable Castle and involves Pearl in his plans. Like Pearl, Faye Marlowe is a Whitstable native, but having left the town more than two decades ago, the star has been living in the South of France since her agent’s phone stopped ringing.

A controversial new property development is planned in Whitstable which will encroach upon the green open space of the downs, to the dismay of Whitstable residents who view this as the thin end of the wedge with regard to local wildlife conservation. Tensions escalate between the developers and Whitstable residents, straining Pearl’s close relationship with London-born police officer DCI Mike McGuire. But the victory is short lived when Pearl discovers a dead body on the downs.

Pearl’s detective agency takes a back seat as she prepares to offer a warm welcome to a group of special visitors. A local arts festival is being held to honour a cultural exchange visit from representatives of Borken - Whitstable’s Twin Town in Germany. Yet very soon, personality clashes surface among the participants; local politicians try to use the festival for their own ends, while others jostle for improved billing on the festival programme. Tempers flare, old feuds re-surface, and on the eve of the first event, a cryptic message is received by the local police.

The Whitstable Pearl restaurant has been busy all summer while Pearl’s detective agency has brought few interesting cases - until a prospective client calls. Christina Scott confides that seven years ago she had the perfect life with a seaside home, a confirmed pregnancy and Steven, a loving husband - until one morning, she woke to find herself alone. Christina’s husband had vanished, taking nothing with him but his car - which was later found abandoned at the beautifully mysterious Oare Marshes.

Pearl receives a surprise present from her mother, Dolly - an early summer break at a riverside manor house that has been recently transformed into an exclusive hotel - the newly named Villa Pellegrini. Pellegrini - the Italian word for pilgrims - reflects the fact that the building lies on the old Pilgrims Way into Canterbury, and Pearl is looking forward to the break. But when she discovers that she’s actually booked in for a cookery course from the Italian celebrity chef, Nico Caruso, she begins to think again.

Robyn Ayres works as the camp caretaker on Finch Island, a former leper colony off the coast of Queensland. Her current clients are a group of ex-military men who run a tough-love program for troubled teens. The latest crop looks like the usual mix of bad boys and sad boys. Then Robyn takes a second look at a kid called Darren. Last time she saw him, his name was Aaron and Robyn was his primary school teacher. And she was somehow at the centre of a vicious small-town custody battle involving his terrifying grandmother.

The Honourable Phryne Fisher - she of the Lulu bob, Cupid's Bow lips, diamante garters and pearl-handled pistol - is the 1920s' most elegant and irrepressible sleuth. Miss Phryne Fisher is up to her stunning green eyes in intriguing crime in each of these entertaining, fun and compulsively listenable stories. With the ever-loyal Dot, the ingenious Mr Butler and all of Phryne's friends and household, the action is as fast as Phryne's wit and logic.

A gripping expose of a notorious cold case. 1978. An idyllic beachside community. A series of abductions and rapes. So what happened to Trudie Adams? Back in the 1970s, Sydney's Northern Beaches felt like a slice of paradise to those who lived there. Bordered on one side by the glistening blue of the Pacific and on the other by stunning rugged bushland, it was the kind of place where everyone knew everyone. So, when a popular local girl, 18-year-old Trudie Adams, disappeared one night while hitchhiking home from the surf club dance, her family, friends and community were devastated.

When Ivan Novak is shot dead putting out his garbage bins in Sydney's west, his family wants revenge, especially his father Milan, a notorious crime boss. It's a job for the second son, Ivan's younger brother, Johnny. But Johnny loves his wife, Amy, and their son, Sasha. And she's about to deliver her ultimatum – either the three of them escape this wave of killing or she'll leave, taking Sasha. Torn between loyalty to his family and love for his wife, Johnny plans the heist of a lifetime and takes a huge risk. Is he prepared to pay the price? And what choice will Amy make?

Like most private eyes, Mark Genevich is something of a lone wolf. So group therapy isn't a great fit. But his landlord/mother is convinced it will help his narcolepsy - ignoring the fact that his disorder is a physical condition. Truth is, he has the time. It's been a year and a half since his last big case and his business could best be described as, well, sleepy. It's never a wise choice to go on a two-day bender with someone you meet in group therapy, but there's something about Gus that intrigues Genevich.

Jack Irish - lawyer, gambler and people finder - is hunting down the villains who hijacked the winnings from his latest betting coup when he is hired by a mystery client to find missing barman Robbie Colbourne. But Robbie turns up dead of a drug overdose.

One Nation, the NRA and $20 million - inside journalism's most audacious sting. By the mastermind who infiltrated the NRA and One Nation and based on the award-winning documentary seen on ABC TV. In 2019, the ABC aired an explosive investigative documentary entitled How to Sell a Massacre. The result of an audacious three-year infiltration of the US National Rifle Association, the documentary revealed how One Nation solicited donations of up to $20 million from the NRA, promising in return to use the balance of power to soften gun laws in Australia.

It’s 1988. Just outside of Tamworth in country New South Wales, a freight train hits someone lying on the tracks. But when a rail worker looks at the body, the scene doesn’t seem to make sense. There is a towel under the head and hardly any blood. Why are the shoes on the body so clean when there is mud all around?

Every cop has a case that dug its claws in and would not let go. For veteran detective Ron Iddles, it was his very first homicide case - the 1980 murder of single mother Maria James at the back of her Melbourne bookshop. He never managed to solve it, and it still grates like hell. Maria’s two sons, Mark and Adam, have lived in a holding pattern longer than Rachael Brown has been alive.

Sam Blue stands accused of the brutal murders of three young students, their bodies dumped near the Georges River. Only one person believes he is innocent: his sister, Detective Harriet Blue. And she’s determined to prove it. Except she’s now been banished to the outback town of Last Chance Valley (population 75), where a diary found on the roadside outlines a shocking plan - the massacre of the entire town. And the first death, shortly after Harry’s arrival, suggests the clock is already ticking.

A haunting and enigmatic tale that will keep you awake and wondering long after you've finished this classic mystery. Everyone agreed that the day was just right for the picnic to Hanging Rock - a shimmering summer morning warm and still, with cicadas shrilling.... St Valentine’s Day, in the midst of the hot summer of 1900, a party of schoolgirls went on a picnic to Hanging Rock. Some were never to return....

Detective Sergeant Gemma Woodstock finds herself lost and alone in the city, brokenhearted by the decisions she's had to make. Her new workplace is a minefield, and the partner she has been assigned is uncommunicative and often hostile. When a homeless man is murdered and Gemma is put on the case, she can't help feeling a connection with the victim and the lonely and isolated life he led despite being in the middle of a bustling city.

Prison psychologist Frank Lundquist is astonished to see Miranda Greene walk into his office 15 years after they graduated from school as his incarcerated newest client. Though she doesn't remember him, Frank remembers every word Miranda ever spoke to him back when she was a beautiful, long-haired teenager. But why is Miranda, daughter of a local politician, serving hard time in a maximum-security prison for a brutal crime? And why does Frank, whose life is in the midst of unravelling, choose to forgo protocol and remain as her psychologist rather than admit he knows her?