Mystery & Suspense Stand Alone Stories

Cry Blue Murder

by Kim Kane & Marion Roberts

Set in Melbourne

Celia and Alice share everything-their secrets, hopes and the increasing horror that a killer is on the loose and abducting schoolgirls just like them. Three bodies have been found, each shrouded in handwoven fabric. From within the depths of a police investigation, clues are starting to emerge. But as Celia and Alice discover the truth, danger is closer than anyone knows. Who can you trust at a time like this?

Thieves' Gambit

by Kayvion Lewis

Challenge: Join the Thieves’ Gambit, a cut-throat competition to crown the world’s greatest thief Rule 1: Never fall in love with your opponent Rule 2: The only thief you can trust is yourself Endgame: Win the heist to save your family - and yourself . . . Seventeen-year-old Rosalyn Quest was raised by a legendary family of thieves with one rule: trust no one.

When her mother is kidnapped, her only chance to save her is to win the Thieves’ Gambit – a deadly competition for the world’s best thieves, where the victor is granted one wish. To win, she must outwit all of her backstabbing competitors, including her childhood archnemesis. But can she take victory from the handsome, charming boy who makes a play for her heart and might be hiding the most dangerous secret of all?

Run

by Gregg Olsen

Rylee has got used to a life on the move, always looking over her shoulder, never making friends, and keeping family secrets. Then everything changes one fateful afternoon. Rylee comes home from school to find the man who raised her lying in a pool of blood and her mother gone. All Rylee has is her mums's instructions written in her dad's blood. A single chilling word that Rylee will come to know all too well...RUN. So Rylee runs, hunting for answers, and for her father's killer. She never imagined that the horrifying truth would lie so close to home...

Four Good Liars

by Sarah Wishart

Teenagers Layla, Kai, Liam, and Fliss have little in common apart from catching the same seaside bus to travel to school. All four narrowly survive a horrific clifftop crash and discover their dead driver's holdall containing one million pounds - and a gun. Each student has a critical, secret reason for wanting to split the money. But with a dangerous gang hunting for the missing bag - and for whoever stole it - time to use it is fast running out, and any wrong move or rash decision could prove deadly.

Will the teenagers manage to put their differences aside and work together to save each other's lives? Or are they simply four good liars who will do anything - and stop at nothing - to keep the stolen fortune for themselves?

Also by Sarah Wishart

The Murder Hypothesis

This Summer's Secrets

by Emily Barr

One hot summer, first love, so many buried secrets . . . Senara has never been in love before. She's not done anything exciting before. Always the sidekick . . . Until the summer that changes everything. Cliff House is closed off for most of the year until its rich Londoner owners come down to Cornwall for the summer.

This year, despite herself, Senara finds herself pulled into this world of wealth and ease, sunbathing and beautiful people. She even finds herself falling in love for the first time. But Cliff House and its owners are hiding things.

They've been hiding things for too long and now, despite all their efforts, their secrets are coming out . . . Secrets that involve Senara's friends and her family in a way she could never have imagined.

Small Spaces

by Sarah Epstein

Tash Carmody has been traumatised since childhood, when she witnessed her gruesome imaginary friend Sparrow lure young Mallory Fisher away from a carnival. At the time nobody believed Tash, and she has since come to accept that Sparrow wasn't real. Now fifteen and mute, Mallory's never spoken about the week she went missing.

As disturbing memories resurface, Tash starts to see Sparrow again. And she realises Mallory is the key to unlocking the truth about a dark secret connecting them. Does Sparrow exist after all? Or is Tash more dangerous to others than she thinks?

Also by Sarah Epstein

Risk

by Fluer Ferris

Set in Melbourne

Best friends Taylor and Sierra meet a hot guy in a chat room online. Both fall for Jacob's charms, but as usual, the more outgoing and vivacious Sierra overshadows Taylor and wins his attention. Taylor's devastated - Sierra already kissed Callum, Taylor's secret crush, over the summer holidays. Life's not fair, especially when Sierra's around. Moving quickly, Sierra sets up a date with Jacob on Friday after school.

She asks Taylor and their friends to cover for her. Even though she's upset, Taylor is still Sierra's best friend and agrees to help. But Sierra abuses the favour and calls to say she's going to spend the night with her date. She doesn't come home all weekend, doesn't answer her phone and nobody's heard from her . . . Taylor is torn. She doesn't want to betray Sierra by telling her parents but at the same time she's concerned for her welfare.

Finally, Callum convinces her to tell. The police are called and their worst fears are confirmed when Sierra's body is found miles from Melbourne a week later . . . Devastated, Taylor becomes obsessed with finding Sierra's killer. As clues emerge, Taylor races against time to try and save the predator's next victim

Also by Fleur Ferris

Two Wolves

Tristan Bancks

Set in Australia

One afternoon, police officers show up at Ben Silver's front door. Minutes after they leave, his parents arrive home. Ben and his little sister Olive are bundled into the car and told they're going on a holiday. But are they? It doesn't take long for Ben to realise that his parents are in trouble. Ben's always dreamt of becoming a detective - his dad even calls him 'Cop'. Now Ben gathers evidence and tries to uncover what his parents have done. The problem is, if he figures it out, what does he do? Tell someone? Or keep the secret and live life on the run?

Also by Tristan Bancks

Queen of the Tiles

by Hanna Alkaf

When Najwa Bakri walks into her first Scrabble competition since her best friend’s death, it’s with the intention to heal and move on with her life. Perhaps it wasn’t the best idea to choose the very same competition where said best friend, Trina Low, died. It might be even though Najwa’s trying to change, she’s not ready to give up Trina just yet. But the same can’t be said for all the other competitors.

With Trina, the Scrabble Queen herself, gone, the throne is empty, and her friends are eager to be the next reigning champion. All’s fair in love and Scrabble, but all bets are off when Trina’s formerly inactive Instagram starts posting again, with cryptic messages suggesting that maybe Trina’s death wasn’t as straightforward as everyone thought. And maybe someone at the competition had something to do with it.

As secrets are revealed and the true colours of her friends are shown, it’s up to Najwa to find out who’s behind these mysterious posts - not just to save Trina’s memory, but to save herself.

Girls who Burn

by MK Pagano

When eighteen-year-old Addie's sister is found dead at the bottom of a ravine it's officially ruled an accident, but Addie doesn't buy it. The problem is, Addie has no evidence because when her sister died, she was a little distracted with Seth Montgomery, the boy next door Addie's always loved to hate.

She believes the murderer is Thatcher Montgomery, Seth's cousin. He always had a thing for her sister, and Addie caught them arguing shortly before her death.

But, one year later, Thatcher is found dead at the bottom of the same ravine and Addie is forced to admit she was wrong.

My Family and other Suspects

by Kate Emery

Set in Australia

Ruth is not thrilled to be spending the weekend at the family farm visiting the ancient GG, her coolly distant step-grandmother. With no internet or phone coverage, Ruth occupies herself by re-reading old Agatha Christie novels, eavesdropping on the adults, and definitely not daydreaming about her sort-of-cousin Dylan.

But when GG dies under suspicious circumstances, Ruth's dull weekend turns into an enforced-family-holiday-slash-possible-murder-investigation – and she's not about to let the police get in the way of her chance to solve a real-life murder mystery.

With Dylan as the Watson to her Holmes, Ruth soon discovers that plenty of people had reasons to be rid of GG, and her list of suspects grows to comprise everyone in the house. Including, in the interests of fairness, herself.

Return to Sender

by Lauren Draper

Set in Australia

After three years away, seventeen-year-old Brodie McKellon has returned to live with her eccentric grandmother above the last remaining Dead Letter Office - the place letters go when no one is left to claim them. But with her reputation as a troublemaker, things don't stay quiet for long, and Brodie soon reunites with her childhood best friend, Elliot, and her old sidekick-turned-nemesis, Levi, to investigate an unsolved mystery: the unclaimed letters of a group of friends who seemed to vanish without a trace nearly twenty years ago.

As Brodie, Elliot and Levi are drawn into the riddle of the dead letter writers, they discover that the past is never truly past, and that old troubles sometimes resurface, with unexpected consequences.

The Gaps

by Leanne Hall

Set in Melbourne

When sixteen-year-old Yin Mitchell is abducted, the news reverberates through the whole Year Ten class at Balmoral Ladies College. As the hours tick by, the girls know the chance of Yin being found alive is becoming smaller and smaller.

Police suspect the abduction is the work of a serial offender, with none in the community safe from suspicion. Everyone is affected by Yin's disappearance-even scholarship student Chloe, who usually stays out of Balmoral drama, is drawn into the maelstrom.

And when she begins to form an uneasy alliance with the queen of Year Ten, Natalia, things get even more complicated. Looking over their shoulders at every turn, Chloe and Natalia must come together to cope with their fear and grief as best they can.

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