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

Barcelona, Summer 2003.Three women are sacrificed to an unknown purpose, skin carved with a cryptic alphabet, tongues cut from their mouths. Sent beautiful, sinister letters – clues, or confessions? – Inspector Fabregat cannot decipher the warnings within. As Barcelona explodes in revelry on the Festival of St Joan, Natalia Hernandez, flower of the National Theatre and Catalan idol, lies broken on the steps of the Cathedral.

Abigail Willard first spots her from the back of a New York cab: the spitting image of Abby herself at age 22 – right down to the silver platforms and raspberry coat she wore as a young artist with a taste for wildness. But the real Abby is now 46 and married, with a corporate job and two kids. As the girl vanishes into a rainy night, Abby is left shaken. Was this merely a hallucinatory side effect of working-mom stress? A message of sorts, sent to remind her of passions and dreams tossed aside? Or something more dangerous?

Sarah is a smart young lawyer living in Bondi when she falls head over heels. Daniel is handsome and passionate. When Daniel introduces her to a charismatic young couple, rabbi Menachem Lev and his wife, Chani, despite herself, Sarah is drawn in by the vibrant community at the beachside synagogue. By the time the couple move to the Jamison Valley, where Menachem and Chani have established a community of believers, Sarah can’t imagine life without the joy, purpose and love she’s discovered. Four years on, youthful passion has given way to something darker.

One case still haunts Hardy.... Legendary PI Cliff Hardy has reached an age when the obituaries have become part of his reading, and one triggers his memory of a case in the late 1980s. Back then Sydney was awash with colourful characters, and Cliff is reminded of a case involving 'Ten-Pound Pom' Barry Bartlett and racing identity and investor Sir Keith Mountjoy.

"There," says Alice Hayward to Reverend Stephen Drew, just after her baptism, and just before going home to the husband who will kill her that evening and then shoot himself. Drew, tortured by the cryptic finality of that short utterance, feels his faith in God slipping away and is saved from despair only by a meeting with Heather Laurent, the author of wildly successful, inspirational books about angels. Heather survived a childhood that culminated in her own parents’ murder-suicide, so she identifies deeply with Alice’s daughter, Katie, offering herself as a mentor to the girl and a shoulder for Stephen....

Imagine a faraway country that was once a friend of the West becoming the enemy, its people isolated and savagely repressed by a tyrant known as Great Uncle. As one of the country's most celebrated writers and a war hero, the storyteller has a better life than most – until he is made an offer he can't refuse. He must write a great novel, telling of the suffering of his people under the enemy's cruel economic sanctions and portraying Great Uncle as their saviour.

Carl Strassberger’s comfortable life in the south of France is shattered when his brother-in-law Larry Lucas, the heir to the family banking business, suddenly vanishes after landing a multi-million-dollar deal. Investigating Larry’s disappearance, Carl uncovers a sinister travel company that helps wealthy, unhappy clients disappear to a new life. But Carl fears Larry is dead – or worse.

Young lawyer Sarah Kaplan has grown up burdened by the knowledge of her grandparents' suffering and brutalisation at the hands of the Nazis. To her mother, they were martyrs to the greatest crime in history; to Sarah they were shining examples to be followed. And then a mysterious letter arrives from South America.

For the past 50 years, the golden treasures of Troy have been lying in the basement of the Pushkin Museum in Moscow. Now Germany and Turkey are both reclaiming the treasures. American lawyer Sarah Kaplan is drawn into the debate when the Turkish government employs her to get the treasure back. But things go horribly wrong and Sarah ends up in a Turkish gaol. Sarah's only link with the outside world is the amulet she wears, passed down to her from her great-grandmother. Engraved with the symbols of the bull and owl of Troy, the amulet's origin is a mystery.

Amanda Pharrell knows what it’s like to be public enemy number one. Maybe it’s her murderous past that makes her so good as a private investigator, tracking lost souls in the wilderness. Her latest target, missing author Jake Scully, has a life more shrouded in secrets than her own - so she enlists help from the one person in town more hated than she is: Ted Conkaffey. But the residents of Crimson Lake are watching the pair’s every move. And for Ted, a man already at breaking point, this town is offering no place to hide.

Nurse Meredith Griffin runs St. Jude Hospital’s emergency ward, the largest on the Pacific Northwest coast. A psychiatric nursing specialist, she’s good at managing other people’s problems but is less adept with her own. When a 22-year-old woman is admitted to Emergency with severe lacerations that prove fatal, her death is labelled a suicide, but Meredith isn’t convinced. Soon after, her boyfriend, Detective Leo Donnelly, attends the scene of a young woman with the same mysterious fatal injuries, and Meredith knows something is terribly wrong.

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.

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.

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.

Harriet Blue used to be a detective. Now she’s inmate 3329. Prison is a dangerous place for a former cop – as Harriet is learning on a daily basis. So, following a fight for her life and a prison-wide lockdown, the last person she wants to see is Deputy Police Commissioner Joe Woods. The man who put her inside. But Woods is not there to gloat. His daughter Tonya and her two-year-old child have gone missing. He’s ready to offer Harriet a deal: find his family to buy her freedom....

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?