Val McDermid
Hailed as Britain’s Queen of Crime, Val McDermid’s award-winning, internationally bestselling novels have captivated readers for more than thirty years. In her Allie Burns series, she returns to the past–both ours and in some ways her own–with the story of a female journalist whose stories lead her into world of corruption, terror, and murder.

It’s 1989 and Allie Burns is back. Older and maybe wiser, she’s running the northern news operation of the Sunday Globe, chafing at losing her role in investigative journalism and at the descent into the gutter of the UK tabloid media. But there’s plenty to keep her occupied. The year begins with the memorial service for the victims of the bombing of Pan Am Flight 103 over Lockerbie, Scotland, but Allie has barely filed her copy when she stumbles over a story about HIV/AIDS that will shock her into a major change of direction. The world of newspapers is undergoing a revolution, there’s skullduggery in the medical research labs and there are seismic rumblings behind the Iron Curtain. When murder is added to this potent mix, Allie is forced to question all her old certainties.

Readers are having a great time time-traveling with Val, and 1989 is a seamless, riveting novel that brings us once again face to face with how very much past is prologue, and how history’s sins stay with us.

Fiona McArthur
The heartwarming new medical rural romance from the bestselling author of The Bush Telegraph. Obstetrician Riley Brand leaves the city behind to go in search of her mother, who’s taken leave from her marriage to pursue a passion for opal mining in the dry backblocks of an old mining town.

Accepting a short-term posting as a fertility expert in Lightning Ridge, Riley plans to assist women pursue their baby dreams in remote and regional areas, while at the same time helping to rekindle her parents’ love for each other.

The small dusty community is a far cry from her polite medical practice on the North Shore of Sydney, but the down-to-earth locals soon welcome her into the fold with their Friday night social gatherings. But no one is more welcoming than enigmatic doctor Konrad Grey, the GP who’s working alongside her.

When an employee of their medical practice confesses she’s hiding an unexpected pregnancy, Konrad and Riley are thrown together in challenging and wonderful ways.

A moving and heartwarming story about new life and new loves, about the treasures to be found above and beneath the surface of a small country town, and about the important choices women must make in life.

Steve Cavanagh
THE MOST HATED WOMAN IN AMERICA

The Sandman killings have been solved. Daniel Miller murdered fourteen people before he vanished. His wife, Carrie, now faces trial as his accomplice. The FBI, the District Attorney, the media and everyone in America believe she knew and helped cover up her husband’s crimes.

THE LAWYER

Eddie Flynn won’t take a case unless his client is innocent. Now, he has to prove to a jury, and the entire world, that Carrie Miller was just another victim of the Sandman. She didn’t know her husband’s dark side and she had no part in the murders. But so far, Eddie and his team are the only ones who believe her.

THE FORMER FBI AGENT

Gabriel Lake used to be a federal agent, before someone tried to kill him. Now, he’s an investigator with a vendetta against the Sandman. He’s the only one who can catch him, because he believes that everything the FBI knows about serial killers is wrong.

THE KILLER

With his wife on trial, the Sandman is forced to come out of hiding to save her from a life sentence. He will kill to protect her and everyone involved in the case is a target.

Even Eddie Flynn…

Geraldine Brooks
A discarded painting in a junk pile, a skeleton in an attic, and the greatest racehorse in American history: from these strands, a Pulitzer Prize winner braids a sweeping story of spirit, obsession, and injustice across American history.

Kentucky, 1850. An enslaved groom named Jarret and a bay foal forge a bond of understanding that will carry the horse to record-setting victories across the South. When the nation erupts in civil war, an itinerant young artist who has made his name on paintings of the racehorse takes up arms for the Union. On a perilous night, he reunites with the stallion and his groom, very far from the glamor of any racetrack.

New York City, 1954. Martha Jackson, a gallery owner celebrated for taking risks on edgy contemporary painters, becomes obsessed with a nineteenth-century equestrian oil painting of mysterious provenance.

Washington, DC, 2019. Jess, a Smithsonian scientist from Australia, and Theo, a Nigerian-American art historian, find themselves unexpectedly connected through their shared interest in the horse–one studying the stallion’s bones for clues to his power and endurance, the other uncovering the lost history of the unsung Black horsemen who were critical to his racing success.

Based on the remarkable true story of the record-breaking thoroughbred Lexington, Horse is a novel of art and science, love and obsession, and our unfinished reckoning with racism.

the story of my life

James Patterson
How did a boy from small-town New York become one of the world’s most successful writers?

• On the morning he was born, he nearly died.
• Growing up, he didn’t love to read. That changed.
• He worked at a mental hospital in Massachusetts, where he met the singer James Taylor and the poet Robert Lowell.
• While he toiled in advertising hell, James wrote the ad jingle line “I’m a Toys ‘R’ Us Kid.”
• He once watched James Baldwin and Norman Mailer square off to trade punches at a party.
• He’s only been in love twice. Both times are amazing.
• Dolly Parton once sang “Happy Birthday” to James over the phone. She calls him J.J., for Jimmy James.
• Three American presidents have invited him to golf with them.

These are the stories of James Patterson’s life: the most anticipated memoir of 2022.

the greatest Australian sportspeople of my lifetime

Kevin Sheedy
Footy legend Kevin Sheedy crosses codes to celebrate the most iconic Australian sportspeople of his time, paying tribute to the 28 men and women whose feats have most inspired him during a life in sport.

From Jack Brabham and Evonne Goolagong Cawley to Ash Barty and Cadel Evans, this pantheon of Aussie greats also includes illuminating interviews with John Bertrand, Michelle Payne and Jessica Watson.

An old footy rival gets a guernsey too – with Sheedy honouring Denis Pagan, the former player and coach who reinvented himself as a horse trainer and won the Australian Derby at his first attempt.

Michael Pascoe
An unforgettable celebration of life, a hymn to the land, and a meditation on the memory and dreams of youth. To be invited to walk beside a dying man, a good man, to be asked into his mind as its existence is counted down, to be offered his gaze into the abyss, to know another soul in the honesty of the deathbed. A privilege.

​Here is a moving and unusual memoir by Michael Pascoe about his relationship with Jim, his friend since boarding school in Queensland, as he faces up to terminal illness. We see a group of friends as they meet occasionally to talk about their shared youth and their mortality. Eloquent, profound – and sometimes funny, as mates can be with one another – these encounters, as well as Michael and Jim’s correspondence about living, dying, memory and family – will resonate deeply with readers.
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The narrative is also a reflection on the author’s own story from son of a country cop to one of Australia’s best-known journalists, taking the reader on a journey – both literal and metaphorical – as he drives north in his beloved Alfa Romeo, exploring along the way what it means to be a son and a father, how one ages and deals with one’s own mortality.
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We were just boys, forming bonds we didn’t know existed until we dared reach for them and found them strong.

Karen Rose
There are good cops. And there are bad cops. The question is…who wins? After completing her tours with the Marines in Iraq, Molly Sutton knew she could take down any bad guy she met. But when her law enforcement agency in North Carolina turned against her, she joined up with her former CO Burke Broussard, who left New Orleans PD to set up a private investigative service for people who couldn’t find justice elsewhere.

Gabe Hebert saw the toll that working for the NOPD took on his dad and decided instead to make a name for himself as one of the best young chefs in the French Quarter. But when his father’s death is ruled a suicide after a deliberately botched investigation by his former captain, Gabe knows his dad stumbled onto a truth that someone wants silenced.

Gabe goes to his father’s best friend, Burke, for help. Burke assigns the toughest member of his team, Molly, to the case. Molly can’t believe she’s being asked to work with the smoking hot chef whose chocolate cake is not the only thing that makes her mouth water. Sparks fly as they follow the leads Gabe’s dad left them, unraveling a web of crimes, corruption, and murder that runs all the way to the top.

Lynda la Plant
Film star Amanda Delany has the world at her feet. Never one for the quiet life, she has had a string of affairs with the hottest actors around. Then, coming home late from a night shoot, Amanda puts the key in her front door for the very last time. The next morning, Amanda’s body is found, stabbed many times, only her beautiful face left unharmed. DI Anna Travis is ordered to the team assigned to the Delany murder, headed by Anna’s former lover, the demanding DCI James Langton.

Anna is shocked by the truth behind Amanda’s public image: her addictions to drugs and starvation diets; her cold, unemotional parents; her elusive film agent; and the former lovers so quick to distance themselves. But Anna has challenges of her own to overcome too. Promotion to Chief Inspector is within her grasp, but when the time comes for her to stand before the board, she faces a shocking accusation of personal misconduct.

With insider authenticity derived from La Plante’s years in the film world and a heroine worthy of her predecessor, Prime Suspect’s Jane Tennison, Silent Scream is La Plante’s best yet.