Cirrus@Austlit

'Esther Paul is 12 years old. She is reported missing on Vanuatu local radio. Two days later her body is found floating in the sea. Senior Constable George Wong of the Vanuatu National Police Force drops his current case to  investigate her disappearance and tragic death. Limited forensics in Vanuatu means George and Probationary Constable Jayline Oli do not know if they are looking at a murder or an accident. The wound to Esther’s head suggests the later.

'Given the precarious state of the Vanuatu Police Force George and Jayline have their work cut out, being transported in Port Vila's most decrepit and unsafe taxi van driven by Jayline's aspiring boyfriend.  George's own unrequited love for a Vanuatu radio neewsreader also impacts the investigation.

'From Mele Beach at one end of Port Vila to Pango at the other, George and Jayline experience Vanuatu’s broken roads, empty restaurants, confusing cultural norms as well as the extravagances and corruption of foreign aid as they attempt to solve the mysterious death.' (Publication summary)

'A searing debut crime novel where the grief and guilt surrounding an unsolved disappearance still haunt a small farming community . . . and will ultimately lead to a reckoning

'The small town of Nannine lies in the harsh red interior of New South Wales. Once a thriving outback centre of stockyards and sheep stations, years of punishing drought have petrified the land. Now nearly a ghost town, Nannine has been whittled down to no more than a stoplight, a couple of pubs and a police station. But it has another, more sinister claim to fame: the still-unsolved disappearance of young Evelyn McCreery nineteen years ago from the bedroom she shared with her twin sister. The details seem impossible - the intruder left no evidence. No forced entry. No fingerprints. No footprints. No tyre tracks. Evelyn simply vanished.

'Mina McCreery's life has been defined by the intense public interest in her sister's case, which is still a hot topic on social media and in true-crime chat rooms. Now an anxious and reclusive adult, Mina lives alone on her family's sunbaked destocked sheep farm.

'Enter Lane Holland, a private investigator who dropped out of the police academy to earn a living cracking cold cases. Before she died, Mina's mother funded a million-dollar reward for anyone who could explain how Evelyn disappeared from her bed in the family's farmhouse. The lure of cash increased the public obsession with Evelyn and Mina, yet has never led to an answer.Lane needs money to pay for his little sister's university education, and he wins Mina's trust when some of his more unconventional methods show promise. But Lane also has darker motivations for wanting to solve the case, and his obsession with the search will ultimately risk both their lives - and yield shocking results.

'Compulsively readable, with an unforgettable setting and cast of characters, WAKE is a powerful, unsparing story of how trauma ripples outward when people's private tragedies become public property, and how it's never too late for the truth to set things right.' (Publication summary)

'Garreth Hoyle is a true crime writer whose destructive love affair with hallucinogenic drugs has sent him searching for ghosts in the unforgiving mallee desert of Western Australia. Heading north through Kalgoorlie, he attempts to score off old friends from his shearing days on Banjawarn Station. His journey takes an unexpected detour when he discovers an abandoned ten-year-old girl and decides to return her to her estranged father in Leonora, instead of alerting authorities. Together they begin the road trip from hell through the scorched heart of the state’s northern goldfields.

'Love, friendship and hope are often found in the strangest places, but forgiveness is never simple, and the past lies buried just beneath the blood red topsoil. The only question is whether Hoyle should uncover it, or run as fast as his legs can take him.

'Banjawarn is an unsettling debut from Josh Kemp. Echoing Cormac McCarthy’s haunting border trilogy and narrative vernacular that recalls the sparse lyricism of Randolph Stow and Tim Winton, this is a darkly funny novel that earns its place amongst the stable of Australian gothic literature.' (Publication summary)

'Duty always has a price.

'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?

'THE SECOND SON is a brilliant action-packed crime debut that creates a world where honour is everything, violence is its own language, and love means breaking all the rules.' (Publication summary)

'What if justice isn't enough?

'Schalk Lourens got out his phone and started filming, something Pieterse taught him years ago. Keep a record. Do it yourself, boykie, every time. That way you can be sure. Cover your arse. Don't trust any of them.

'Schalk began with Pieterse himself, what was left of him.

'Cape Town, South Africa.

'Retired police chief Piet Pieterse has been murdered, necklaced in fact. A tyre placed round his neck, doused with petrol, set alight. An execution from the apartheid era and one generally confined to collaborators. Who would target Pieterse this way, and why now?

'Veteran copy Schalk Lourens is trying to forget the past. But Pieterse was his old boss and when Schalk is put on the case, he finds the past has a way of infecting the present.

'Meanwhile, it's an election year. People are pinning their hopes on charismatic ANC candidate Gideon Radebe but there's opposition and in this volatile country, unrest is never far from the surface.

'Schalk must tread a difficult path between the new regime and the old, between the personal and the professional, between justice and revenge.

'This investigation will change his life, and could alter his county's future.'

Source: Publisher's blurb.