Southern Cross Crime

Australian and New Zealand crime and thriller writing - collectively referred to as Southern Cross Crime - is booming globally, with antipodean authors regularly featuring on awards and bestseller lists, such as Eleanor Catton's Booker Prize winning The Luminaries and Jane Harper's big commercial hit, The Dry, winner of the CWA Gold Dagger Award. Hailing from two sparsely populated nations on the far edge of the former Empire - neighbours that are siblings in spirit, vastly different in landscape - Australian and New Zealand crime writers offer readers a blend of exotic and familiar, seasoned by distinctive senses of place, outlook, and humour, and roots that trace to the earliest days of our genre. Southern Cross Crime is the first comprehensive guide to modern crime writing from "Down Under". From coastal cities to the outback, leading critic Craig Sisterson showcases key titles from over 250 storytellers, plus screen dramas ranging from Mystery Road to Top of the Lake. Fascinating insights are added through in-depth interviews with some of the prime suspects who paved the way or instigated the global boom, including Michael Robotham, Paul Cleave, Emma Viskic, Paul Thomas, Candice Fox, and Garry Disher. 'Southern Cross Crime is informative, knowledgeable, wide ranging. If you have any ideas about writing a crime novel you need to read it, if you enjoy reading crime novels, you need to read it, if you simply love reading, you need to read it. This is not a dry as dust tome - the writer's encyclopaedic knowledge is carried lightly... a box of the finest literary chocolates' - Renée Taylor, 2018 recipient of the Prime Minister's Award for Literary Achievement in Fiction 'A valuable and illuminative resource for crime fiction fans everywhere' - Book'd Out

Patricia Cornwell has a sixth sense about the men and women in blue. In Hornet's Nest, her page-turning novel about crime and police in Charlotte, North Carolina, Cornwell moved behind the badges of these real-life heroes to uncover flesh-and-blood characters who strode through her pages to reveal vulnerable, passionate, brave, sometimes doubting, always fascinating figures. In Southern Cross, Cornwell takes us even closer to the personal and professional lives of big-city police, in a story of corruption, scandal, and robberies that escalate to murder. This time, her setting is Richmond, Virginia, where Charlotte Police Chief Judy Hammer has been brought by an NIJ grant to clean up the police force. Reeling from the recent death of her husband, and resented by the police force, city manager, and mayor of Richmond, Hammer is joined by her deputy chief Virginia West and rookie Andy Brazil on the most difficult assignment of her career. In the face of overwhelming public scrutiny, the trio must bring truth, order, and sanity to a city in trouble.

Winner of the 2010 Edgar Award for Best Novel Heralded by the Washington Post as a "a magnificent creation, Huck Finn channeled through Lord of the Flies", John Hart's The Last Child is his most significant work to date, an intricate, powerful story of loss, hope, and courage in the face of evil. Thirteen year-old Johnny Merrimon had the perfect life: a warm home and loving parents; a twin sister, Alyssa, with whom he shared an irreplaceable bond. He knew nothing of loss, until the day Alyssa vanished from the side of a lonely street. Now, a year later, Johnny finds himself isolated and alone, failed by the people he'd been taught since birth to trust. No one else believes that Alyssa is still alive, but Johnny is certain that she is---confident in a way that he can never fully explain. Determined to find his sister, Johnny risks everything to explore the dark side of his hometown. It is a desperate, terrifying search, but Johnny is not as alone as he might think. Detective Clyde Hunt has never stopped looking for Alyssa either, and he has a soft spot for Johnny. He watches over the boy and tries to keep him safe, but when Johnny uncovers a dangerous lead and vows to follow it, Hunt has no choice but to intervene. Then a second child goes missing . . . Undeterred by Hunt's threats or his mother's pleas, Johnny enlists the help of his last friend, and together they plunge into the wild, to a forgotten place with a history of violence that goes back more than a hundred years. There, they meet a giant of a man, an escaped convict on his own tragic quest. What they learn from him will shatter every notion Johnny had about the fate of his sister; it will lead them to another far place, to a truth that will test both boys to the limit. Traveling the wilderness between innocence and hard wisdom, between hopelessness and faith, The Last Child leaves all categories behind and establishes John Hart as a writer of unique power. Now with an excerpt from John Hart's next book The Hush, available in February 2018.

"Now boarding: Southern Cross, tanker flight 73 to Titan! Alex Braith is on board retracing her sister's steps to the refinery moon, hoping to collect her remains and find some answers. The questions keep coming though--how did her sister die? Where did her cabinmate disappear to? Who is that creep across the hall? And why does she always feel like she's being watched?"--Back cover of Volume 1.

Claire McNab turns her hand to romance in this dazzling love story.

The vast, forbidding Australian Outback… the grandeur of Ayers Rock… legendary Alice Springs… the Great Barrier Reef… the primal beauty of Cape Tribulation… Two women, from different continents, with different values, collide with spectacular results… UNDER THE SOUTHERN CROSS. American Lee Paynter has built her Small travel agency into an international tour company. Brash, confident, openly lesbian, her great love is her business. Women? They’re to enjoy and let go. Alexandra Findlay is pursuing a career in Australian tourism with quiet focus and determination, convinced that her career is the best she can hope for in her arid, closeted emotional existence. Now Alex has been assigned to accompany Lee on the American woman’s visit Down Under, to win Lee’s company over to Australian tourism. Suddenly Alex’s quiet life explodes… And Lee is challenged by a woman unlike any she has ever known.