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David Duffy
Before the NBN, before the Snowy River Scheme, the greatest infrastructure achievement in Australian history was the completion of the Overland Telegraph. Its singing wires traversed the continent north to south, including desert landscapes not previously trodden by white men, under an onerous contract that demanded its 3000 kilometres would be completed in eighteen months.

This is the definitive account of the construction of the Overland Telegraph, which followed the rough maps that Stuart had brought back from his final expedition and eight years later rammed telegraph poles into the inhospitable terrain he had encountered, so as to link Australia for the first time with the outside world via an underwater cable to Singapore. Creating the Overseas Telegraph was the obsession of Adelaide’s Chief Telegraphist, Charles Todd, and his triumph over not only his rivals but the unforgiving geography is a totally compelling yarn. There’s tragedy, violence and heroism, laced with crocodiles, mysterious illnesses, floods and drought. Drawing on original letters and journals, David Dufty has uncovered never before published details about the project.

It was the greatest feat of engineering in 19th century Australia, one that very nearly collapsed in the face of immense challenges, and an epic race against time.

Mitchell Burns
It took ten years in the coal mines for Mitchell Burns to realise that no pay cheque is worth sacrificing your dreams. Now he’s making up for lost time. After spending a decade in a job he hated, Mitch realised that he had put his dreams on hold for too long.

With no blueprint for success, he turned away from mining knowing he’d have to forge his own path in photography. In a vulnerable moment, he posted online about leaving the only industry he’d ever known to follow his dreams – the now-viral video has inspired millions of people around the world not to give up on their goals.

These days, hundreds of thousands of viewers follow Mitch as he travels Australia and abroad, sharing his breathtaking landscape photographs and how he captures them. His story is a compelling call to action for anyone who has ever longed to quit their day job and pursue their passion. Learning the hard way that you won’t find happiness in a big bank balance, Mitch discovered that some risks are well worth taking – you just need to be brave enough to take the shot.

Life, Camera, Action is an inspiring story about choosing your own adventure, and the beauty to be found in following your dreams.

Lucia Osborn-Cowley
‘I understand – and sympathise with – the feeling you might have that you already know the Jeffrey Epstein story. But I am not here to tell you a story about Jeffrey Epstein, or even Ghislaine Maxwell. I am here to tell you the stories of ten women, many of whom have never spoken at length before, about the real impact of sexual trauma on their lives.’

In November 2021, Ghislaine Maxwell was convicted of five counts of sex-trafficking of minors, and now faces 20 years in prison for the role she played in Jeffrey Epstein’s abuse of four girls. The trial was meticulously covered by journalist and legal reporter Lucia Osborne-Crowley, one of only four reporters allowed into the courtroom every day.

The Lasting Harm is her account of that trial, a gripping true crime drama and a blistering critique of a criminal justice system ill-equipped to deliver justice for abuse survivors, no matter the outcome.

Centring the stories of four women and their testimonies, and supplemented by extra material to which Osborne-Crowley has exclusive access, The Lasting Harm brings this incendiary trial to life, questions our age-old appetite for crime and punishment and offers a new blueprint for meaningful reparative justice.

Peter Cobman
True tales of crimes so bizarre you might not believe them. The mysterious disappearance of thousands of false teeth, international travel via the postal system, doughnut delivery heists, clowns terrorising a neighbourhood, the theft of a three-storey-high replica mango, criminal clairvoyants making off with haunted cash: could crime get any weirder, and could people get any stupider?

In Australia’s Most Bizarre Crimes, Peter Coleman explores the archives and recent records to produce this astounding collection of criminal mishaps that will have you laughing even as you shake your head in disbelief.

Neil Lancaster
A CASE GONE COLD
Six years ago, Beata Dabrowski arranged to meet her lover in Glasgow and was never seen again. There were no leads. . . until now.

AN UNRELIABLE WITNESS
Imprisoned gang boss Davie Hardie wants to talk in exchange for his freedom. He knows exactly where Beata is buried, and he’s prepared to take the police to her grave.

A KILLER DESPERATE TO ESCAPE
But when the mission to locate Beata’s body is hijacked, DS Max Craigie is drafted on to the case. Someone is selling secrets.

Max will stop at nothing to expose police corruption and uncover Beata’s murderer. . . but can you ever really trust a killer to catch a killer?

Mike Maden
A deadly war game. An adversary as hard to find as he is to kill. Weapons so sophisticated, none have seen the like before. Juan Cabrillo and the crew of the Oregon have finally met their match in this pulse-pounding new adventure in the #1 New York Times bestselling series.

When African jihadis attack a Nigerian regiment using American weapons, Cabrillo and the Oregon crew are on the case, investigating from Afghanistan to Kuala Lumpur to track a mysterious arms dealer—a genius, or perhaps a devil—known only as the Vendor.

Cabrillo goes undercover to find the Vendor’s base, but his adversary isn’t just an arms smuggler. He’s an arms maker, and Cabrillo just walked into a lethal military game alongside the most dangerous mercenaries in the world, designed to test the Vendor’s cutting-edge AI arsenal.

And yet, surviving an arena full of flame-throwing robots isn’t even his biggest problem. The Vendor has an army of high-speed drones headed for a pivotal military site, and if the Oregon crew can’t stop them from releasing a deadly neurotoxin, the entire globe will erupt in conflict.

Patricia Wolf
DS Lucas Walker is off duty. He’s supposed to be showing his little sister Grace the Australian outback, on her visit from Boston, but instead they’re headed out bush- where Walker’s cousin has been mining for boulder opal. Something seemed off when Walker heard that Blair wanted to get out of Kanpara, so he and Grace are en route to bring him home to Caloodie.

But Kanpara is in Channel Country, and a major flood is on the way.

The atmosphere in the isolated mining town is already tense with rumours of a big opal find, and whenWalker, Grace and Blair wake up the next day they find themselves completely cut off. A deluge far north has run off into the rivers that make up this unique ecosystem, and the roads will be impassable for days. As they take in their predicament, Blair receives a shocking phone call.

Two bodies have been found, brutally murdered.

The husband is an immediate suspect, but Walker is not convinced. And when Blair is taken in for questioning, the stakes couldn’t be higher. Before the water recedes, he must work with local police to uncover the killer in their midst. Can Walker act fast enough to save his cousin, and keep Grace safe?

Chris Hammer
A controversial entrepreneur is murdered in a remote mountain valley, but this is no ordinary case. Ivan and Nell are soon contending with cowboy lawyers, conmen, bullion thieves and grave robbers.

But it’s when Nell discovers the victim is a close blood relative, that the past begins to take on a looming significance.

What did take place in The Valley all those years ago? What was Nell’s mother doing there, and what was her connection to troubled young police officer Simmons Burnside? And why do the police hierarchy insist Ivan and Nell stay with the case despite an obvious conflict of interest?

Fiona McIntosh
Botanical artist Jane Saville is devastated when her manipulative mother banishes her to the countryside to protect someone else’s honour. Isolated far from home, she is forced to live an impoverished, secretive life to save the family from public shame.

Guy Attwood is heir to a fortune, but prefers his quiet passion for rare-apple hunting on behalf of Royal Kew Gardens to building the family’s business empire. He sets out to find a critically endangered apple species that he dreams of gifting and re-naming for his friend, the soon-to-be coronated George V.

When the paths of these people from two very different worlds collide, Jane begins to hope for a different future, but their new friendship is shattered by jealousy, misunderstanding, duty and treachery. A young boy will inspire Jane to defy the powers working against her and prove she is no woman to be outcast.

Tim Winton
An epic novel of determination, survival, and the limits of the human spirit. This is Tim Winton as you’ve never read him before. Two fugitives, a man and a child, drive all night across a stony desert. As dawn breaks, they roll into an abandoned mine site. From the vehicle they survey a forsaken place – middens of twisted iron, rusty wire, piles of sun-baked trash.

They’re exhausted, traumatised, desperate now. But as a refuge, this is the most promising place they’ve seen. The child peers at the field of desolation. The man thinks to himself, this could work. Problem is, they’re not alone.

So begins a searing, propulsive journey through a life whose central challenge is not simply a matter of survival, but of how to maintain human decency as everyone around you falls ever further into barbarism.