Six minutes in the wrong place at the wrong time--that's all it took to ruin Sydney detective Ted Conkaffey's life. Accused but not convicted of a brutal abduction,Ted is now a free man and public enemy number one. Maintaining his innocence, he flees north to keep a low profile amidst the steamy, croc-infested wetlands of Crimson Lake. There, Ted's lawyer introduces him to eccentric private investigator Amanda Pharrell, herself a convicted murderer....

"Most homicide detective teams run on trust, loyalty, and the shared desire to put killers behind bars. Frank Bennett's partner, Eden Archer, thrives on darkness and danger. She has a rare talent for catching killers--but her idea of justice has little to do with courtrooms. Now three girls are missing, and Eden is going to undercover to a remote farm where the troubled go to hide and blood falls more often than rain. Frank's job is to keep an eye...

Student essays, scholarship committee members' notes, and other writings reveal interactions between a group of modern-day students at an exclusive New South Wales high school and their strange connection to a young Irishman transported to Australia in the early 1800s.

Nestled in a picturesque corner of southern Australia, the Valley View Motel has been run by the Quinlans for years-- and nobody adores the place more than Lola, the family's lovable and mischievous Irish-born matriarch. So when she insists that her relatives spend their Christmas elsewhere, the close-knit bunch can't help but be a bit curious. Plotting in secret and online, Lola thinks it would be fun to invite a select group of strangers to stay...

"When frantic man refuses to leave the car that witnesses say he deliberately crashed, paramedics Jane and Alex think it's a desperate cry for help. But his paranoid claims that someone is out to get him only confirm official reports that he is delusional. When he is indeed found dead in what looks like a suicide, Jane is uneasy: she remembers the raw terror in his eyes. Detective Ella Marconi shares these doubts, which are compounded as the case...

"Gemma Guillory has lived in Rainier her entire life. She knows the tiny town's ins and outs like the back of her hand, the people like they are her family, their quirks as if they were her own. She knows her once-charming town is now remembered for one reason, and one reason only. That three innocent people died. That the last stop on the Rainier Ripper's trail of death seventeen years ago was her innocuous little teashop. She knows that the consequences...