Popular Oceanian Crime Books
Find crime books written by authors from Oceania for the next part of the Read Around The World Challenge. (20)
1.
After Story by Larissa Behrendt EN
AustraliaDescription:
When Indigenous lawyer Jasmine decides to take her mother Della on a tour of England's most revered literary sites, Jasmine hopes it will bring them closer together and help them reconcile the past. Twenty-five years earlier the disappearance of Jasmine's older sister devastated their tight-knit community. This tragedy returns to haunt Jasmine and Della when another child mysteriously goes missing on Hampstead Heath. As Jasmine immerses herself in the world of her literary idols - including Jane Austen, the Brontë sisters and Virginia Woolf - Della is inspired to rediscover the wisdom of her o... continue
2.
All that's left unsaid by Tracey Lien EN
Description:
2022 LA TIMES BOOK PRIZE FINALIST AND INTERNATIONAL BESTSELLER A Phenomenal Book Club Pick! For fans of Everything I Never Told You and The Mothers, a deeply moving and unflinching debut following a young Vietnamese-Australian woman who returns home to her family in the wake of her brother’s shocking murder, determined to discover what happened—a dramatic exploration of the intricate bonds and obligations of friendship, family, and community. Just let him go. These are the words Ky Tran will forever regret. The words she spoke when her parents called to ask if they should let her younger broth... continue
3.
Aue by Becky Manawatu EN
Country: Oceania / 
New Zealand
New Zealand
Description:
WINNER OF THE JANN MEDLICOTT ACORN PRIZE FOR FICTION WINNER OF THE MITOQ BEST FIRST BOOK OF FICTION WINNER OF THE NGAIO MARSH AWARD FOR BEST CRIME NOVEL auē (verb) to cry, howl, groan, wail, bawl. (interjection) expression of astonishment or distress. Taukiri was born into sorrow. Auē can be heard in the sound of the sea he loves and hates, and in the music he draws out of the guitar that was his father’s. It spills out of the gang violence that killed his father and sent his mother into hiding, and the shame he feels about abandoning his eight-year-old brother to a violent home. But Taukiri’s... continue
4.
Birnam Wood : A Novel by Eleanor Catton EN
Country: Oceania / New Zealand
New Zealand
Description:
A gripping psychological thriller from Eleanor Catton, the Booker Prize-winning author of The Luminaries, Birnam Wood is Shakespearean in its wit, drama, and immersion in character. A brilliantly constructed consideration of intentions, actions, and consequences, it is an unflinching examination of the human impulse to ensure our own survival. Birnam Wood is on the move . . . Five years ago, Mira Bunting founded a guerrilla gardening group: Birnam Wood. An undeclared, unregulated, sometimes-criminal, sometimes-philanthropic gathering of friends, this activist collective plants crops wherever n... continue
5.
Burial Rites by Hannah Kent EN
Description:
Set against Iceland's stark landscape, Hannah Kent brings to vivid life the story of Agnes, who, charged with the brutal murder of her former master, is sent to an isolated farm to await execution. Horrified at the prospect of housing a convicted murderer, the family at first avoids Agnes. Only Tóti, a priest Agnes has mysteriously chosen to be her spiritual guardian, seeks to understand her. But as Agnes's death looms, the farmer's wife and their daughters learn there is another side to the sensational story they've heard. ... BURIAL RITES evokes a dramatic existence in a distant time and pla... continue
6.
Chalo Jahaji : On a Journey Through Indenture in Fiji by Brij V. Lal EN
FijiDescription:
Indians of the indentured diaspora have a remarkable lot in common. Meeting as 'foreign' students in India, the girmitiya descendants from Guyana, Mauritius, Fiji and Natal immediately develop a close bonding because of their use of common words, similarity of names, culinary preferences and transported texts. In similar manner, when Brij Lal visited Trinidad in 1998, both his physical as well as his spiritual being enabled him to blend immediately with his Bhojpuri brethren in Chinidad Tapu. His book, Chalo Jahaji, focusses ostensibly on the girmit experience in Fiji. It seeks to tell the sto... continue
7.
Colour Scheme by Ngaio Marsh EN
Country: Oceania / New Zealand
New Zealand
Description:
It was a horrible death - lured into a pool of boiling mud and left there to die. Far from home on a wartime quest for German agents, Chief Inspector Alleyn knew that any number of people could have killed him.
8.
Dirt Creek by Hayley Scrivenor EN
Description:
In Hayley Scrivenor's Dirt Creek, a small-town debut mystery described as The Dry meets Everything I Never Told You, a girl goes missing and a community falls apart and comes together. When twelve-year-old Esther disappears on the way home from school in a small town in rural Australia, the community is thrown into a maelstrom of suspicion and grief. As Detective Sergeant Sarah Michaels arrives in town during the hottest spring in decades and begins her investigation, Esther's tenacious best friend, Ronnie, is determined to find Esther and bring her home. When schoolfriend Lewis tells Ronnie t... continue
9.
Four Dead Queens by Astrid Scholte EN
Description:
Four dead queens. Three days to catch a killer. Two forbidden romances. One shocking twist you won’t see coming. Seventeen-year-old Keralie Corrington may seem harmless, but she’s, in fact, one of Quadara’s most skilled thieves and a liar. Varin, on the other hand, is an honest, upstanding citizen of Quadara’s most enlightened region, Eonia. He runs afoul of Keralie when she steals a package from him, putting his life in danger. When Varin attempts to retrieve the package, he and Keralie both find themselves entangled in a conspiracy that leaves all four of Quadara’s queens dead. With no other... continue
