PARCEL TRACKING • FLAT RATE AUSTRALIA-WIDE $9.90 (NSW/ACT $7.90) INFO
CRIME ALLEY at Abbey's Bookshop, 131 York Street Sydney is Australia's specialist bookstore collection of crime fiction and true crime non-fiction. Detective mystery, Police procedural, rural noir, Scandi noir, psychological thriller - whatever your tastes, we have a whole wall of new release crime writing, and then aisles of crime fiction, covering modern crime novels, historical crime fiction, cosy crime books and true crime books.
We've had a whole aisle filled with Australian Crime Fiction in our shop at 131 York Street for decades. DECADES! All this great, home-grown writing is showcased on our website. You can see a selection of recent Australian Crime Fiction below and click through on the Category link to see even more.
CRIME CHRONICLE eNews - To receive our monthly crime writing newsletter, subscribe to Abbey's eNews and tick 'Crime' when you receive your Welcome email.
ABBEY'S BOOKSELLER PICK ----- A bright and breezy novel with a very entertaining bunch of misfits, and a likeable protagonist who is street smart, a good judge of character (as long as she isn't romantically involved with them) and who has the enduring mystery of her own origins. Brick (named for the lane she was abandoned in as a baby) tries to help her ex-footballer ex-session muso Uncle Baz and their beloved but battered Brunswick St pub, by taking a job with the local council - for which she is eminently unsuitable for and unsuited to.
She soon finds herself faced with a few dilemmas, starting with the stinking corpse of the local mayor in the locked archives of the council building and winding up with murderous businessmen and corrupt politicians - via a possible romantic entanglement with an irritating journalist, the clandestine activities of a paranoid record shop owner and an assortment of fabulous characters who offer help of varying usefulness (the ASIO/parking-ticket inspector/drag-queen was one of my favourites!)
Full of local colour and inner Melbourne settings, this is a great romp, thoroughly enjoyable with delightful cast of eccentric characters. I hope to see more of Brick! Lindy Jones
Rae Cairns' novel was shortlisted for the 2021 Ned Kelly Award for Best Debut Crime Fiction.
Sarah Calhoun is a regular Sydney soccer mum, but she's keeping terrifying secrets from everyone she loves... and her past is about to catch up with her. When two men from Northern Ireland hunt her down, she's forced to return to Belfast to testify at a murder trial. Caught in the crossfire of an obsessive policeman driven by a disturbing past, and a brutal IRA executioner, Sarah faces an impossible choice: lie and allow a killer to walk free, or tell the truth and place her children in the line of fire.
Lyn McFarlane's atmospheric and intelligent crime thriller is set in a hospital where nothing is as it seems...
Meredith Griffin manages the emergency department at St Jude Hospital. A specialist in psychiatric nursing, she's also an expert at hiding her own problems - and solving everyone else's.
Robert Lukins, when we asked him 'why Nebraska?' confessed to having developed a fascination for the place. That has now manifested within his latest novel, LOVELAND...
Two women stand in the shallows, a man dead at their feet, while around them buildings burn. Amid the ruins of a fire-ravaged amusement park and destroyed waterfront dwellings, one boarded-up building still stands. May has come from Australia to Loveland, Nebraska, to claim the house on the poisoned lake as part of her grandmother's will. Escaping the control of her husband, will she find refuge or danger?
ABBEY'S BOOKSELLER PICK - Kate Miles is exhausted. She's a month off having her second child, and there's one more week before she goes on maternity leave from the northern NSW police station where she is the detective sergeant. A violent hold-up to solve is the last thing she wants, but when she is also expected to fob off the grieving mother of a football hero who drowned in an unfortunate and avoidable accident, she is at the end of her tether. But as the mother shares her doubts and suspicions about her daughter-in-law, Kate starts to wonder if it was as simple as an accidentÂ…
Layered with her investigations, are the memories of the footballer's wife, which gradually reveal the complications of the case. A taut mystery, with believable characters struggling with various issues and attitudes, and dilemmas that lead to heart-breaking consequences for those involved. Lindy Jones
With all the bad news at the moment, it might be a good idea to escape to something that is pure fun.
Kellie McCourt lightens the mood again with her latest murder mystery - a great one for readers of Janet Evanovich and Kerry Greenwood. Billion-heiress Indigo-Daisy-Violet-Amber Hasluck-Royce-Jones-Bombberg, socialite and felon, is back in a madcap sleuthing adventure...
ABBEY'S BOOKSELLER PICK ---- With this novel, Garry Disher has marshalled all of the considerable skills he has amassed across his long career. The mystery is compelling - the cold-case of the disappearance of Charlie Deravin's mother 20 years ago. As a policeman, Charlie has spent a lot of his spare time investigating the mystery while many suspect his father (a retired detective) was the murderer despite having been cleared at the time.
Over the top of this is a rich layer of family dynamics, and Charlie's personal journey with relationships, failed and new, running alongside challenges in his employment - on suspension for assaulting a superior officer. All of which is delivered with a warmth and empathy for our human flaws.
The finishing touches are Disher's acute eye for the minutiae of daily life and of Australian culture, both current and times past. The dialogue is pitch-perfect and I can see actor Patrick Brammall inhabiting the role of beleaguered Charlie (if a screen adaptation were to come). Craig Kirchner
A Sunlit Weapon
#17 Maisie Dobbs
Paperback
$29.99
Not in-store but you can order this
The Old Woman With the Knife
Paperback
$29.99
Not in-store but you can order this
The Corpse Flower
#1 Heloise Kaldan
Paperback
$29.99
Not in-store but you can order this
The Widow of Walcha
A True Story of Love, Lies and Murder...
Paperback
$34.99
In Stock 😊
ABBEY'S BOOKSELLER PICK ----- Jacob lives on a remote farm with his father. He's never been anywhere else, so far as he remembers, and he can barely remember his mother who died long ago. Given a diary for his eleventh birthday to record what happens, or what he thinks about, he starts to confide in it things he can't share with his dad. Who the reader starts to understand, has something most definitely wrong with him...
Jacob's close observations of his surroundings layered with a child's lack of understanding of the circumstances make for a creeping sense of dread and claustrophobia, particularly as he is enmeshed in his father's paranoia and yet realises that he has to act contrary to everything he's been taught. Another tense and atmospheric character-based book from Brandi (Wimmera; The Rip) whose talent is for underplaying horrible details and letting the reader's imagination fill in the blanks. Lindy Jones
There's no such thing as a perfect victim.
In a hotel room on a sleepy Pacific island, Judy Novak waits. And worries. It isn't the first time 29-year-old problem child Paulina has kept her mother waiting. But Judy can't ignore the island's jagged cliffs and towering pines - or the dread that Paulina has finally acted on her threats to take her own life.
When Paulina's body is discovered, Judy's worst fears seem confirmed. Only, Paulina didn't kill herself. She was murdered.
A fascinating chronicle of Australia's underworld through the 1970's to the early 1990's.
The second part of a trilogy, The Notorious Kidd follows on from volume one, The Audacious Kidd, which recounts Bertie Kidd's tough upbringing in war-torn London, his move to Australia as a teenager and his apprenticeship in crime, leading from petty theft to safe-cracking, race fixing and counterfeiting.
Volume two begins with Kidd locked up in Pentridge Prison for a minor indiscretion before being released to continue his unorthodox career...
Castle Shade
#17 Mary Russell
Paperback
$19.99
Not in-store but you can order this
Murder on a Winter's Night
Ten Classic Crime Stories for Christmas...
Paperback
$19.99
Forthcoming
You can preorder this
Wild Shores
#2 Doggerland Mystery
Paperback
$19.99
Not in-store but you can order this
Murder on the Mauretania
#2 Ocean Liner Mysteries
Paperback
$19.99
Not in-store but you can order this
Dead Man's Footsteps
#4 Roy Grace
Paperback
$19.99
Forthcoming
You can preorder this
The Matchmaker
A Spy in Berlin
Paperback
$22.99
Not in-store but you can order this
Shadow Over Southwold
#3 Southwold Mysteries
Paperback
$19.99
Not in-store but you can order this
COSY CRIME - Most cosy crime books come from overseas, so if they are not showing as 'In Stock' then we expect they will be delayed in getting to us, until things get back to some kind of normal.
The Jealousy Man
Stories from the Sunday Times no.1...
Paperback
$22.99
Forthcoming
You can preorder this
The Widow of Walcha
A True Story of Love, Lies and Murder...
Paperback
$34.99
In Stock 😊
House of Gucci [Film Tie-in]
A Sensational Story of Murder, Madness,...
Paperback
$22.99
In Stock 😊
The Escape of Jack the Ripper
The Full Truth About the Cover-up...
Paperback
$29.95
In Stock 😊
Unexplained Deaths
How one woman changed homicide investigation...
Paperback
$22.99
In Stock 😊
Great Australian Mysteries
Spine-tingling tales of disappearances,...
Paperback
$29.99
In Stock 😊
The Expert Witness a Second Dose
Examinations of Crimes, Drugs and...
Paperback
$32.99
In Stock 😊
Flight of the Diamond Smugglers
A Tale of Pigeons, Obsession and...
Paperback
$29.99
In Stock 😊
The Greatest True Crime Stories Ever Told
Tales of Murder and Mayhem Ripped...
Paperback
$34.99
In Stock 😊
The Mystery of the Parsee Lawyer
Arthur Conan Doyle, George Edalji...
Paperback
$29.99
In Stock 😊
Deadly Director's Cut
#2 Catskill Summer Resort
Paperback
$17.99
Not in-store but you can order this
Batten Down the Belfry
#4 House Flipper Mystery
Paperback
$17.95
Not in-store but you can order this
Body And Soul Food
#1 Books and Biscuits Mystery
Paperback
$17.99
Not in-store but you can order this
The Gift of the Magpie
#28 Meg Langslow Mystery
Paperback
$15.95
Not in-store but you can order this
Castle Shade
#17 Mary Russell
Paperback
$19.99
Not in-store but you can order this
Murder on the Mauretania
#2 Ocean Liner Mysteries
Paperback
$19.99
Not in-store but you can order this
The Dark Heart of Florence
#15 Lady Emily Mysteries
Paperback
$32.99
Not in-store but you can order this
The Affair of the Bloodstained Egg Cosy
#1 Wilkins
Paperback
$19.99
Not in-store but you can order this
Inheritance of Secrets
Paperback
$19.99
In Stock 😊
