A game of lies

Clare Mackintosh
They say the camera never lies.
But on this show, you can’t trust anything you see. Stranded in the Welsh mountains, seven reality show contestants have no idea what they’ve signed up for.

Each of these strangers has a secret. If another player can guess the truth, they won’t just be eliminated – they’ll be exposed live on air. The stakes are higher than they’d ever imagined, and they’re trapped.

The disappearance of a contestant wasn’t supposed to be part of the drama. Detective Ffion Morgan has to put aside what she’s watched on screen, and find out who these people really are – knowing she can’t trust any of them.

And when a murderer strikes, Ffion knows every one of her suspects has an alibi . . . and a secret worth killing for.

Holly

Stephen King
Stephen King’s Holly marks the triumphant return of beloved King character Holly Gibney. Readers have witnessed Holly’s gradual transformation from a shy (but also brave and ethical) recluse in Mr. Mercedes to Bill Hodges’s partner in Finders Keepers to a full-fledged, smart, and occasionally tough private detective in The Outsider. In King’s new novel, Holly is on her own, and up against a pair of unimaginably depraved and brilliantly disguised adversaries.

When Penny Dahl calls the Finders Keepers detective agency hoping for help locating her missing daughter, Holly is reluctant to accept the case. Her partner, Pete, has Covid. Her (very complicated) mother has just died. And Holly is meant to be on leave. But something in Penny Dahl’s desperate voice makes it impossible for Holly to turn her down.

Mere blocks from where Bonnie Dahl disappeared live Professors Rodney and Emily Harris. They are the picture of bourgeois respectability: married octogenarians, devoted to each other, and semi-retired lifelong academics. But they are harboring an unholy secret in the basement of their well-kept, book-lined home, one that may be related to Bonnie’s disappearance. And it will prove nearly impossible to discover what they are up to: they are savvy, they are patient, and they are ruthless.

The burning room

Michael Connelly
In the LAPD’s Open-Unsolved Unit, not many murder victims die almost a decade after the crime. So when a man succumbs to complications from being shot by a stray bullet nine years earlier, Bosch catches a case in which the body is still fresh, but any other evidence is virtually nonexistent.

Now Bosch and his new partner, rookie Detective Lucia Soto, are tasked with solving what turns out to be a highly charged, politically sensitive case. Starting with the bullet that’s been lodged for years in the victim’s spine, they must pull new leads from years-old information, which soon reveals that this shooting may have been anything but random.

Ghost target

Andy McDermot
Alex Reeve – known as OPERATIVE 66 – is a former special-ops soldier and one of the UK’s most lethal weapons. Previously a member of SC9, an elite covert unit with a remit to assassinate the country’s enemies, Reeve was framed for treason and now lives a nomadic existence – as the merciless killers he once trained alongside hunt him down.

For a chance of a normal life, Reeve must expose and dismantle the sinister SC9. So when a series of brutal killings in Germany have all the hallmarks of an SC9 tactic – the murder of ‘ghost targets’, decoys to camouflage the true intended victim – Reeve finally sees opportunity for revenge.

Sucked into shadowy conspiracy involving dark global powers, Reeve will risk his life to save others – and to secure his freedom. But if there’s one man with the skills to do so… it is Operative 66.

Dreaming in French

Vanessa McCausland
Saskia Wyle spent one sultry European summer on Isle de Re when she was nineteen. The bright salt flats and sun-soaked beaches are now a distant memory, and one she made herself forget after an unspeakable tragedy. But the French heiress she befriended over twenty years ago has left half of her magnificent home to Saskia and the other half to Felix Allard, the now-reclusive film star living on the island. How did Simone Durant die? Was it the family curse that haunted her? And why has she included Saskia in her will after all this time?

Saskia returns to the place of dry-stone walls and ancient olive trees to find that Simone has left her another unexpected gift – a manuscript written in French. Like the lyrical language embedded somewhere in Saskia’s subconscious, she must find a way to understand what Simone is telling her. As Saskia once again falls under the island’s spell, she must reckon with her past to save what is most precious to her.

None of this is true

Lisa Jewell
Celebrating her forty-fifth birthday at her local pub, popular podcaster Alix Summers crosses paths with an unassuming woman called Josie Fair. Josie, it turns out, is also celebrating her forty-fifth birthday. They are, in fact, birthday twins. A few days later, Alix and Josie bump into each other again, this time outside Alix’s children’s school. Josie has been listening to Alix’s podcasts and thinks she might be an interesting subject for her series. She is, she tells Alix, on the cusp of great changes in her life.

Josie’s life appears to be strange and complicated, and although Alix finds her unsettling, she can’t quite resist the temptation to keep making the podcast. Slowly she starts to realise that Josie has been hiding some very dark secrets, and before she knows it, Josie has inveigled her way into Alix’s life—and into her home.

But, as quickly as she arrived, Josie disappears. Only then does Alix discover that Josie has left a terrible and terrifying legacy in her wake, and that Alix has become the subject of her own true crime podcast, with her life and her family’s lives under mortal threat.

Weatherman goes bush

Graham Creed
A memoir about the unexpected joys and challenges of a tree-change from a television studio to a farm, from a beloved former ABC weather presenter. The expectations of a tree change rarely meet the reality, but for TV weatherman Graham Creed, being immersed in the weather every day, rather than just reporting on it from a studio, was an eye-opening and transformative experience.

After leaving his television career in 2022, Graham became a full-time farmer – growing garlic, dabbling in native floristry and becoming known to locals as the ‘honey man’. But even with his deep knowledge of weather and climate to inform his decisions, the realities of flash flooding, bushfires and drought presented unexpected challenges.

Meditative and wry, Weatherman Goes Bush is a candid memoir about rediscovering yourself within the untamed beauty of the natural world. Infused with fascinating weather wisdom and country-town anecdotes, each page is a charming breath of fresh air that will have you dreaming of your own escape to the country.

The eagle in the mirror

Jesse Fink
‘Great tale of espionage. The Eagle in the Mirror is a successful rehabilitation of a master spy who was unfairly accused of being a double agent, and even a triple agent, at the service of Germany and the Soviet Union… after a relentless investigation, Jesse Fink’s book does justice to Ellis.’
Taline Ter Minassian, author of Most Secret Agent of Empire: Reginald Teague-Jones, Master Spy of the Great Game


Home to Biloela

Priya Nadesalingam
The dramatic inside story of the Tamil refugee family which became a cause célèbre all around Australia, and the epic fight by a small rural community to set them free. It was dawn in the small rural town of Biloela. Loud thumping on the front door signalled the start of a four-year odyssey that would catapult Priya and her family into national debate.

For the first time, Priya shares the story of her sheltered childhood in war-torn Sri Lanka, and her perilous escape across the Indian Ocean on an overcrowded and leaking fishing boat. Alone in a strange country, she had to make a new life without family or friends. She marries Nades and settles with him in Biloela, where they have two daughters.
Finally, Priya, Nades and the girls were all granted the permanent visas they need by the new government, and they were able to return home to Biloela in the happiest ending they could have wanted.

Bee Miles

Rose Ellis
The untold story of the uncompromising and fearless woman who captivated mid-20th century Australia with her spectacular acts of defiance. Bee Miles was a truly larger-than-life character. Famous for being outrageous in public, or, as she said, living’ recklessly’, she shocked and intrigued cities and towns across Australia. But she was no ordinary wanderer.

Born into a wealthy family, Bee moved in Sydney’s literary and artistic circles in the 1920s and 1930s before she took up residence on the streets. A consummate performer and a perceptive critic, she caught the public’s imagination with her spectacular acts of defiance, emerging majestically from the surf with a knife strapped to each thigh, stopping a country train in its tracks, hitchhiking across remote Australia and drawing large city crowds with her Shakespeare recitations. She was once even voted more famous than the Prime Minister. She was also repeatedly incarcerated in prisons, confined to mental hospitals and treated brutally by a succession of authority figures, starting with her father.

Bee constantly defied conventional expectations of female behaviour. The public found her captivating and fragments of her story have been told again and again in many forms. Until now, no-one has uncovered the real story behind the colourful legend. This first full biography offers a fascinating glimpse into a dark side of Australia’s history.

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