Cirrus@Austlit

'Forensic physician Dr Anya Crichton is presented with a patient who has returned from her honeymoon with multiple sexually transmitted infections. Her husband has none of them. She tearfully denies having had any other partners and Anya believes her. Is this a medical phenomenon or has something more sinister taken place?

Anya's investigations into the case leads to a ground breaking study that attracts international attention. Her expertise leads to an invitation to New York to address over three hundred football players in the USA Professional League. The enigmatic private investigator Ethan Rye is assigned to assist Anya during the summit. When an alleged rape involving five football players takes place, Anya is commissioned to investigate. She is immediately thrust into a subculture of violence, sexual assault and drug abuse.

No one is what he or she seems. Anya soon discovers a devastating truth about the players that threatens to shut down the eight billion dollar football industry. Now lives, including her own, are in danger.....' (Publisher's blurb)

'They've considered him a murderer for eighteen years, so no one in Dungirri is surprised when 'Gil' Gillespie returns and a woman's body is found in his car. Wearied by too many deaths and doubting her own skills, local police sergeant Kris Mathews isn't sure whether Gil is a decent man wronged by life, or a hardened criminal she should lock up. But she does know he's not guilty of this murder, because she is his alibi.

Gil isn't used to feeling anything for anyone. But there's a teenager here who has his eyes - a daughter he never knew existed. And the sergeant's fiery tenacity stirs his blood. He can't acknowledge either. He's made too many enemies in the Sydney Mafia and amongst corrupt cops. Kris's alibi might have saved him from a murder charge but her dedication to finding the truth has made her a target.

Gil is surrounded by wilderness, but there's no place to hide, because his enemies have most of the town on their side, and they know that the one thing most punishing would be harming the few people he cares about.' (From the publisher's website.)

'Haunted by her failures, Detective Isabelle O'Connell is recalled to duty by DCI Alec Goddard to investigate the abduction of yet another child from her home town. They have only days to find the girl alive, with few clues, a town full of suspects, and a vast wilderness to search. It soon becomes a game of cat and mouse, with Bella firmly in the killer's sights.

'For Bella, this case is already personal; for Alec, his best intentions to keep it purely professional soon dissolve. He couldn't be more involved if the missing child were his own, and his anguish over Bella's safety moves beyond the concern for a colleague.

'Their mutual attraction leaves them both vulnerable to their private nightmares - nightmares the killer ruthlessly exploits.' (Author's abstract)

'For Detective Dusty Buchanon, a female cop in the very male world of the Northern Territory Police Force, it always pays to expect the unexpected. When the body of a young Thai prostitute is found in a billabong near a camp of disaffected Vietnam Veterans, Dusty knows this is what she's been looking for - a spectacular case to get her back on top after the debacle of an infamous British backpacker murder trial that almost destroyed her career.

'But when the body disappears and her colleagues turn against her, Dusty gets help from an unlikely source: a handsome German bird-watcher holidaying in the Northern Territory, who just happens to be a cop. And soon, the case becomes much more than just another step on her career ladder...' (Publisher's blurb)

'While investigating the drug overdose of a teenage girl, pathologist and forensic physician, Dr Anya Crichton, discovers striking similarities between the case and a number of apparent suicides. All of the victims disappeared for a period of time before taking their lives in desperate circumstances.

'As Anya delves deeper, the pathological findings point to the frightening possibility that the deaths are not only linked, but part of a sinister game. Nothing can prepare her for the role she is forced to take in the deadliest play of all...'

Source: Publisher's blurb.

'Award-winning new crime fiction: '[An] intelligent and compelling thriller that turns the notion of evil inside out' - Canberra times. Matthew Liu sees his parents gunned down on a lonely Sydney backstreet. A young woman, the killer, stares him in the face before fleeing the scene. When the police arrive, all they find is the discarded gun.

'Detective Inspector Paul Harrigan's unit is pitched into a high-profile investigation with little to go on. Who is the young woman? How can she have vanished into thin air? When DC Grace Riordan follows up a connection between one of the victims and a termination clinic, pieces start to fall into place, but Grace is forced to confront some personal demons.

'Harrigan has demons of his own to contend with. Burned badly in the past for refusing to turn a blind eye to police corruption, he suspects that his current team and investigation is being subtly sabotaged. then he discovers that his own son is in email contact with the killer and that the young woman's bloody rampage is far from over. And with a single phone call the killer draws Harrigan and Grace into her trap.'

Source : publisher's blurb

'When a drunken Pito proposes to Materena, she initially thinks it's just the booze talking. As she nevertheless starts planning, she juggles everyday life only to have Pito act as though he's forgotten his proposal.' (Publication summary)