Fascination with the unknown, the hidden, the lost, the missing and the secret is universal. Australia has more than its fair share of mysteries, from before the beginning of recorded time up to the disappearance of flight MH370 in the waters to our south (or maybe elsewhere). In Great Australian Mysteries Graham Seal retells tales of the supernatural, of unsolved crimes, lost treasures, wartime enigmas and other enduring mysteries. Some of the stories take place in the waters and islands surrounding us, including New Zealand, PNG, Indonesia and Antarctica, all mysterious realms of their own. Graham shares new information which throws light on some famous Australian mysteries. 'Graham Seal brings to life stories of missing treasures, shipwrecks, First Nation legends, mysterious happenings and the occasional murder' - Rob Willis OAM, National Library of Australia Oral History and Folklore Collections

Unsolved murders, paranormal events etc.

Winner of the Colin Roderick Award for Australian writing, the Ned Kelly Award for Australian crime fiction, and the CWA Duncan Lawrie Dagger Award. Peter Temple's The Broken Shore is a transfixing and moving novel about a place, a family, politics and power, and the need to live decently in a world where so much is rotten. The Broken Shore, his eighth novel, revolves around big-city detective Joe Cashin. Shaken by a scrape with death, he's posted away from the Homicide Squad to the quiet town on the South Australian coast where he grew up. Carrying physical scars and more than a little guilt, he spends his time playing the country cop, walking his dogs, and thinking about how it all was before. But when a prominent local is attacked in his own home and left for dead, Cashin is thrust into what becomes a murder investigation. The evidence points to three boys from the nearby aboriginal community—everyone seems to want to blame them. Cashin is unconvinced, and soon begins to see the outlines of something far more terrible than a burglary gone wrong. Peter Temple is currently being hailed as the finest crime writer in Australia, but it won't be long before he is recognized as what he really is—one of the nation's finest writers, period. Born in South Africa, Temple is writing a dynamic kind of literary thriller that ultimately defies classification.

On Wednesday, 26 January 1966 "Australia Day" the three Beaumont children left their home in the Adelaide suburb of Somerton Park for a morning at the beach. By the end of the day, the worst fears of every Australian parent were realised when Jane, aged 9, her sister Arnna, 7, and their four-year-old brother, Grant, did not return home. The "Beaumont Children Case" remains Australia's most famous unsolved mystery. The unknown fate of the three siblings has become an integral part of Australia's urban mythology. More than any other crime, the disappearance of the Beaumont children has become one of the defining events in the history of this country.

Meet Hal Challis, Detective for the Mornington Peninsula police force in Southeast Australia, in the first investigation in this prize-winning crime series A serial killer is on the loose in a small coastal town near Melbourne, Australia. Detective Inspector Hal Challis and his team must apprehend him before he strikes again. But first, Challis has to contend with the editor of a local newspaper who undermines his investigation at every turn, and with his wife, who attempts to resurrect their marriage through long-distance phone calls from a sanitarium, where she has been committed for the past eight years for attempted murder--"his."

INSTANT NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER "I love Jane Harper's Australia-based mysteries." —Stephen King Two brothers meet in the remote Australian outback when the third brother is found dead, in this stunning new standalone novel from Jane Harper Brothers Nathan and Bub Bright meet for the first time in months at the remote fence line separating their cattle ranches in the lonely outback. Their third brother, Cameron, lies dead at their feet. In an isolated belt of Australia, their homes a three-hour drive apart, the brothers were one another’s nearest neighbors. Cameron was the middle child, the one who ran the family homestead. But something made him head out alone under the unrelenting sun. Nathan, Bub and Nathan’s son return to Cameron’s ranch and to those left behind by his passing: his wife, his daughters, and his mother, as well as their long-time employee and two recently hired seasonal workers. While they grieve Cameron’s loss, suspicion starts to take hold, and Nathan is forced to examine secrets the family would rather leave in the past. Because if someone forced Cameron to his death, the isolation of the outback leaves few suspects. A powerful and brutal story of suspense set against a formidable landscape, The Lost Man confirms Jane Harper, author of The Dry and Force of Nature, is one of the best new voices in writing today.

John Pinkney is the author of bestselling Greatest Mysteries of the Modern World, Haunted, Unexplained and Great Australian Mysteries 1 and 2.

This early work by Fergus Hume was originally published in 1886 and we are now republishing it with a brand new introductory biography. 'The Mystery of a Hansom Cab' is a tricky tale set in Australia and is Hume's most famous crime novel. Fergusson Wright Hume was born on 8th July 1859 in England, the second son of Dr. James Hume. The family migrated to New Zealand where Fergus was enrolled at Otago Boys' High School, and later continued his legal and literary studies at the University of Otago. Hume returned to England in 1888 where he resided in London for a few years until moving to the Essex countryside. There he published over 100 novels, mainly in the mystery fiction genre, though none had the success of his début work.

A modern western set in an isolated Australian bush town with a soaring crime rate, where a local constable with a troubled past must investigate the death of a teenage girl whose murder threatens to set the dusty streets ablaze. Constable Paul Hirschhausen—”Hirsch”—is a recently demoted detective sent from Adelaide, Australia’s southernmost booming metropolis, to Tiverton, a one-road town in rustic, backwater “wool and wheat” country three hours north. Hirsch isn’t just a disgraced cop; the internal investigations bureau is still trying to convict him of something, even if it means planting evidence. When someone leaves a pistol cartridge in his mailbox, Hirsch suspects that his career isn't the only thing on the line. But the tiny town of Tiverton has more crime than one lone cop should have to handle. The stagnant economy, rural isolation, and entrenched racism and misogyny mean every case Hirsch investigates is a new basket of snakes. When the body of a 16-year-old local girl is found on the side of the highway, the situation in Tiverton gets even more sinister, and whether or not he finds her killer, there’s going to be hell to pay. Paperback edition found under the title Bitter Wash Road. From the Hardcover edition.

First published in Britain in 1989, this edition of a study of the spiritual beliefs and practises of Aborigines includes a new chapter, TSolitude and Community'. Contains a select bibliography and an index. The author, an Australian poet and novelist, has written numerous books on Aborigines, including TSacred Places' (1991) and TThe Elements of the Aborigine Tradition' (1992).