Showing results by publisher "Bolinda Publishing Pty Ltd" in Mystery

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.

Pearl Nolan always wanted to be a detective, but life and a teenage pregnancy got in the way of a police career and instead she built up a successful seafood restaurant in her coastal home town of Whitstable - famous for its native oysters. Now, at 39, and with son Charlie away at university, Pearl finds herself suffering from empty nest syndrome...until she discovers the drowned body of local oyster fisherman Vinnie Rowe, weighted down with an anchor chain, on the eve of Whitstable’s annual oyster festival.

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.

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.

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.

From the Sunday Times number one best-selling author comes the thrilling second instalment in the Crimson Lake series. In a dark roadside hovel called the Barking Fog Inn, the bodies of two young bartenders lie on a beer-sodden floor. Only the nighttime animals in the surrounding forest were close enough to hear their screams. Crimson Lake's resident private detectives are hired to take on the case.

A missing teenager, drugs, yachts, the sex trade and a cold trail that leads from Sydney to Norfolk Island, Byron Bay and Coolangatta. Will one man's loss be Hardy's gain? 'I'd read about it in the papers, heard the radio reports and seen the TV coverage and then forgotten about it, the way you do with news stories.' The police suspect the father, Gerard Fonteyn OA, a wealthy businessman. But he's hired Cliff to find his daughter, given him unlimited expenses and posted a $250,000 reward for information.

The thrilling follow-up to best seller Never Never. It's not easy being a good detective - especially when your brother's a serial killer. 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)....

When Gemma Woodstock, homicide investigator in the large rural town of Smithson, views the body of her old school friend Rosalind splayed open on the autopsy table, she suffers the same feeling of inscrutability that has coloured her relationship with Rose for so long. Gemma, however, is hiding her own secrets. She has a four-year-old son, Ben, and has recently moved in with the boy's father, Scott. But the relationship is troubled, and she is having an affair with a colleague that she works closely with.

Not all murder victims are mourned, but the perpetrator must always be punished.... For Robert Church, superintendent of the Parramatta Female Factory, the most enjoyable part of his job is access to young convict women. Inmate Grace O'Leary has made it her mission to protect the women from his nocturnal visits, and when Church is murdered with an awl thrust through his right eye, she becomes the chief suspect.

Living on her family’s gorgeous lakeside estate in Cornwall, England, Alice Edevane is a bright, clever, inquisitive, innocent, and precociously talented 14-year-old who loves to write stories. But the mysteries she pens are no match for the one her family is about to endure.... One midsummer’s eve, after a beautiful party drawing hundreds of guests to the estate has ended, the Edevanes discover that their youngest son, Theo, has vanished without a trace.

Is Sydney gun city? It certainly seems so when Cliff Hardy is hired by entrepreneur and one-time pistol-shooting champion Timothy Greenhall to investigate the violent death of his troubled son. Soon Hardy is pitched into a world of crooked cops - former members of the Gun Control Unit - outlaw bikies and honest police trying to clean the stables quietly. Two more murders raise the stakes, and relationships are stretched to the breaking point.

How well can you really know another person? And how far would you go to find out the truth about him or her? When Julia learns her sister has been violently killed, she knows she must get to the bottom of things. Even if it means jeopardising her relationship with her husband and risking the safety of her son. Getting involved with a stranger online. Losing control. Perhaps losing everything. Set in Paris and London, Second Life is about the double lives people lead--and the dark places in which they can end up.