Black River – Matthew Spencer
A long, burning summer in Sydney. A young woman found murdered in the deserted grounds of an elite boarding school. A serial killer preying on victims along the banks of the Parramatta River. A city on edge.
Adam Bowman, a battling journalist who grew up as the son of a teacher at Prince Albert College, might be the only person who can uncover the links between the school murder and the ‘Blue Moon Killer’. But he will have to go into the darkest places of his childhood to piece together the clues. Detective Sergeant Rose Riley, meanwhile, is part of the taskforce desperately trying to find the killer before he strikes again. Adam Bowman’s excavation of his past might turn out to be Rose’s biggest trump card, or it may bring the whole investigation crashing down and put her own life in danger.
Taut, suspenseful and utterly compelling, Black River is the best thriller you’ll read this year.
The Coast – Eleanor Limprecht
A stunning novel of love and courage by the bestselling author of The Passengers.
Alice is only nine years old in 1910 when she is sent to the feared Coast Hospital Lazaret at Little Bay in Sydney, a veritable prison where more patients are admitted than will ever leave. She is told that she’s visiting her mother, who disappeared one day when Alice was two years old. Once there, she learns her mother is suffering from leprosy and that Alice has the same disease.
As she grows up, the secluded refuge of the lazaret becomes Alice’s entire world, her mother and the other patients and medical staff are her only human contact. The patients have access to a private sandstone-edged beach, their own rowboat, a piano and a library of books, but Alice is tired of the smallness of her life and is thrilled by the thought of the outside world. It is only when Guy, a Yuwaalaraay man who fought and was injured in World War I, arrives at the Coast that Alice begins to experience what she has yearned for, as they become friends and then something deeper.
Filled with stunning descriptions of the wild beauty of the sea cliffs and beaches surrounding the harsh isolation of the lazaret, and written in beautiful, evocative prose, The Coast is meticulously researched, riveting historical fiction that resonates vitally with the present day. Heartbreaking and soul-lifting, The Coast is a compelling, universal story of love, courage, sacrifice and resilience.
The Lion – Conn Iggulden
The age of myths and legends has given way to the world of men. In the front rank stands Pericles, Lion of Athens.
Behind Pericles lies the greatest city of the ancient world. Before him, on land and at sea, stands the merciless Persian army. Both sides are spoiling for war.
Though still a young man, Pericles knows one thing: to fight a war you must first win the peace.
It’s time for a hero to rise.
For his enemies to tremble.
And for Athens, a city of wisdom and warriors, to shine with glory . . .
With a Mind to Kill – Anthony Horowitz
The explosive new James Bond novel from the no.1 bestselling author of Trigger Mortis and Forever and a Day.
It is M’s funeral. One man is missing from the graveside: the traitor James Bond, in custody accused of M’s murder.
Behind the Iron Curtain, a group of former Smersh and Stasi agents now want to use their lethal British spy against a target whose assassination will change history. Bond is smuggled into the lion’s den to receive his orders – but whose orders is he following, and what will he do when the time comes to pull the trigger?
In a mission where one false move means death, Bond must also grapple with the darkest questions about himself – but not even he knows what has happened to the man he used to be.
An Exciting and Vivid Inner Life – Paul Dalla Rosa
Whether working in food service or in high-end retail, lit by a laptop in a sex chat or by the camera of an acclaimed film director, sharing a dangerous apartment in the city, a rooming house in China or a vacation rental in Mallorca, the protagonists of the ten stories comprising Paul Dalla Rosa’s debut collection, An Exciting and Vivid Inner Life, navigate the spaces between aspiration and delusion, ambition and aimlessness, the curated profile and the unreliable body.
By turns unsparing and tender, Dalla Rosa explores our lives in late-stage capitalism, where globalisation and its false promises of connectivity leave us further alienated and disenfranchised. Like the legendary Lucia Berlin and his contemporary Ottessa Moshfegh, Dalla Rosa is a masterful observer—and hilarious eviscerator—of our ugly, beautiful attempts at finding meaning in an ugly, beautiful world.
