Scarlet Stiletto The Fourteenth Cut 2022

Scarlet Stiletto: The Fourteenth Cut - 2022 features twelve award-winning stories from the 29th annual Scarlet Stiletto Awards. 'Crime and mystery short stories of startling originality; and a grim warning of what evil lurks in Australian suburbia.' - Kerry Greenwood The Scarlet Stiletto series of eBooks – the First to the Fourteenth Cuts – feature superb collections of spine-chilling crime and mystery short stories, by Australian women writers, curated from 29 years of the Scarlet Stiletto Awards hosted by Sisters in Crime Australia.

Scarlet Stiletto: The First Cut presents a superb collection of spine-chilling crime fiction stories culled from the annual Scarlet Stiletto Awards hosted by Sisters in Crime Australia. You'll find the whole gamut from murder and mayhem to police procedurals and crime in verse. Some will have your blood running cold, some will raise gooseflesh, and others will make you laugh - but all will have you on the edge of your seat, and wanting more. "A crime and mystery short story collection of startling originality; and a grim warning of what evil lurks in Australian suburbia." Kerry Greenwood

Currawongs appearing at the Manor in vast numbers had come to portend one thing... Death was on its way. When photographer Elizabeth Thorrington is invited to document the history of Currawong Manor for a book, she is keen to investigate a mystery from years before: the disappearance of her grandfather, the notorious artist Rupert Partridge, and the deaths of his wife, Doris, and daughter, Shalimar. For years, locals have speculated whether it was terrible tragedy or a double murder, but until now, the shocking truth of what happened at the Manor that day has remained a secret. Relocating to the manor, Elizabeth interviews Ginger Flower, one of Rupert's life models from the seventies, and Dolly Shaw, the daughter of the enigmatic 'dollmaker' who seems to have been protected over the years by the Partridge family. Elizabeth is sure the two women know what happened all those years ago, but neither will share their truths unconditionally. And in the surrounding Owlbone Woods, a haunting presence still lurks, waiting for the currawongs to gather... An evocative tale set in the spectacular Blue Mountains, Currawong Manor is a mystery of art, truth and the ripple effects of death and deception.

The Second Cut features a thrilling selection of stories culled from the Scarlet Stiletto Awards held annually by Sisters in Crime Australia. This sequel to the bestselling First Cut features the 1st Prize winners from 2007 - 2010, and a selection of category winners from the 17-year history of the Scarlet Stiletto Awards. A superb collection of page-turning mysteries in which fabulous female protagonists solve - and sometimes perpetrate - all kinds of crimes. Featuring cops, killers, PIs, crooks and amateur sleuths, these award-winning stories will have you on the edge of your seat, will chill your blood and sometimes make you laugh out loud.

When Sadie inherits Poet's Cottage, she sets out to discover all she can about her notorious grandmother, Pearl Tatlow. Pearl, a children's writer who scandalised 1930s Tasmania, was violently murdered in the cellar and her killer never found.Sadie grew up with a loving version of Pearl through her mother, but her aunt Thomasina tells a different story, one of a self-obsessed, abusive and licentious woman.As Sadie and her daughter Betty work to uncover the truth, strange events begin to occur in the cottage. And as the terrible secret in the cellar threads its way into the present day, it reveals a truth more shocking than the decades-long rumours.Poet's Cottage is a beautiful and haunting mystery of families, bohemia, truth, creativity, lies, memory and murder.

‘Suspenseful, exciting, atmospheric rural crime; a riveting debut.’ - Michaela Lobb, Sisters in Crime Australia What will they risk for answers? Picturesque Daylesford has a darker side. Melbourne writer Georgie Harvey heads to the mineral springs region in central Victoria to look for a missing farmer, and soon links the woman’s disappearance with the unsolved mystery surrounding her husband. Meanwhile, maverick police officer and solo dad John Franklin is working a case that’s a step up from Daylesford’s usual soft crime: a stalker targeting single mothers. Georgie’s investigation stirs up long-buried secrets, and attracts enemies. When she reports the missing person to local cops, sparks fly between her and Franklin. Has he dismissed the writer too quickly? And what will the truth cost?

'An ugly story told beautifully. WEDDERBURN will hold you tightly in its grip, and leave an imprint when it lets you go.' Myfanwy Jones 'In WEDDERBURN, we see the trauma caused by the blackest of hearts. A desolate yet deeply affecting tale of savage crime in rural Australia.' Mark Brandi 'Maryrose Cuskelly has the rare gift of telling a true story with the excitement and vividness of fiction; she never forsakes the facts in this chilling and hypnotic book.' William McInnes 'The slaughter was extravagant and bloody. And yet there were people in the small town of Wedderburn in Central Victoria who, while they did not exactly rejoice, quietly thought that Ian Jamieson had done them all a favour.' One fine Wednesday evening in October 2014, 65-year-old Ian Jamieson secured a hunting knife in a sheath to his belt and climbed through the wire fence separating his property from that of his much younger neighbour Greg Holmes. Less than 30 minutes later, Holmes was dead, stabbed more than 25 times. Jamieson returned home and took two shotguns from his gun safe. He walked across the road and shot Holmes' mother, Mary Lockhart, and her husband, Peter, multiple times before calling the police. In this compelling book, Maryrose Cuskelly gets to the core of this small Australian town and the people within it. Much like the successful podcast S-Town, things aren't always as they seem: Wedderburn begins with an outwardly simple murder but expands to probe the dark secrets that fester within small towns, asking: is murder something that lives next door to us all?

Rome, 1600. In the shadowed cellars of Cardinal Del Monte’s palazzo, a shaft of light illuminates the face of Luca Passarelli. Across the room, behind an enormous canvas, the brilliant, mercurial artist Michelangelo Merisi da Caravaggio paints with sure brushstrokes Luca’s likeness into a new masterpiece. Caravaggio is both revered and reviled by his patrons as well as his fellow artists. His innovative paintings and his blazing temper have made him powerful friends, but also powerful enemies—enemies who are determined to quench the flame of his talent. What Caravaggio does not know is that Luca is a professional assassin, a bitter and spiteful man who, in his dark past, has ‘breathed in death’ and has committed murder on multiple occasions. What the artist does not know is that when next they meet it will not be a canvas that brings them together, but rather revenge ... and death.