Trace by investigative reporter and journalist Rachael Brown tells the story of Brown’s internationally acclaimed true crime podcast which reexamines the cold case murder of Maria James in Australia in 1980 and the potential foul-play of major institutions that disrupted progress. Maria James, a 38-year-old mother of two boys, was brutally murdered in her bookstore…
Brandy Scott’s debut novel, Not Bad People, is about three friends who engage in what seems to be a harmless act, but instead results in tragedy. How will they react? Not Bad People is the first novel by writer Brandy Scott that tells the story of three 30-something friends who live in a small, mostly…
Crimson Lake by Sydney-based, Ned Kelly Award-winning author Candice Fox is a thrilling contemporary crime audiobook set in Queensland, Australia—perfect for listeners who like to immerse themselves in exotic, evocative climes. Listen to an exclusive excerpt from Crimson Lake, then make sure you're signed in and comment below for a chance to win an audiobook…
Every Wednesday, we here at Criminal Element will put together a list of Staff Picks of the books that published the day before—sharing the ones that we are looking forward to reading the most! This week, three cozies pair with Garry Disher's Australian noir and Rachel Caine's second Stillhouse Lake thriller to highlight a great…
The Student by Iain Ryan is high-paced, hardboiled regional noir: fresh, gritty, unnerving, with a stark and lonely beauty. University campus novels involving crime date back to at least Dorothy L. Sayers’s Gaudy Night (1935), in which Lord Peter Wimsey and his mystery writer friend Harriet Vane investigate vandalism, poison-pen messages, and threats of murder at Oxford…
Due to book deadlines, I only watch television and film if it’s either recommended to me, of a particular beloved franchise, or directly relevant to my career in Gothic, historical and/or paranormal fiction. The Kettering Incident, an Australian show released this summer via the Foxtel network, is set in and shot in present day Tasmania.…
Unfortunately, The Blood on my Hands is a true story. I spent my childhood in Australia in the 1960s and 70s, and it was not what one would call conventional. While, in most cases, a family is a group of people you can trust and feel comfortable with, mine left me to the will of…
Ghosts may not be real in the paranormal sense of a spirit world interacting with our own—however, they are real in the literal sense, when the woman that you paid to have murdered shows up to greet you at her own funeral. Today, The Washington Post reported the story of Noela Rukundo—a woman of African…
The Mystery of the Venus Island Fetish by Tim Flannery is set in 1932 and follows young anthropologist Archie Meek and the Great Venus Island Fetish—a ceremonial mask surrounded by 32 human skulls—that might be the key to the recent deaths and disappearances at the museum it resides in (Available February 2, 2016). It’s 1932,…
A Taste for Nightshade by Martine Bailey is a thrilling historical novel that involves recipes, revenge, mystery, and marriage (Available January 12, 2016). Manchester 1787. When budding young criminal Mary Jebb swindles Michael Croxon's brother with a blank pound note, he chases her into the night and sets in motion a train of sinister events.…
