Nothing in the post-war decades reveals the underbelly of Australian life the way police records do. Small time heists. Failed robberies. Runs of bad luck. Payback. Love gone wrong. Drink, drugs and late-night assignations. Cops doing their job well. And badly. Plausible lies, unlikely truths. Murder and misadventure. In Suburban Noir Peter Doyle – author of City of Shadows and Crooks Like Us – explores the everyday crime and catastrophe that went on in the fibro and brick veneers, the backyards, bedrooms, vacant lots and pokie palaces of 1950s and 1960s Sydney suburbia. Extensive research into forensic archives, public records and the private papers of the late Brian Doyle (1960s detective, later assistant commissioner of police, and Peter Doyle’s uncle) also reveals important new information about two of the most famous crimes in Australian history – the Kingsgrove Slasher case and the Graeme Thorne kidnap-murder. 'A fabulous insight into violent crimes of the 1950s and 1960s through the eyes of one of Australia's then top cops, Brian Doyle, as interpreted and related by his nephew, true-crime writer, curator and crime aficionado, Peter Doyle. Often accompanied by great photos and drawings, each story is a gem that highlights the differences in criminal activity and police investigations in those days. Well researched and eminently readable.' — Mark Tedeschi 'A beautifully written and illustrated book about crime and crime scenes in Sydney during the 1950s and ’60s, some of them involving the author’s famous uncle, the detective Brian Doyle. It is a fascinating snapshot of the culture of Australia in those years, describing in words and images the cars, clothes, architecture, music, drugs, language and prejudice of the period. At times engrossing, macabre, absurdly funny and sadly shabby. The pictures are a mixture of crime scene photographs and Peter Doyle’s finely rendered pencil and ink versions of some of these photographs.' — Reg Mombasa 'With these shocking, at times heartbreaking, stories of very bad things happening to ordinary people, our foremost crime chronicler Peter Doyle shines his forensic spotlight on the schemers, slashers, killers and cops who have always lurked in the shadows of sunny Sydney suburbia.' — Larry Writer, author of Underbelly Razor: Tilly Devine, Kate Leigh and The Razor Gangs 'Suburban Noir brings a hidden Sydney to vivid life, deep-diving into the forensic record to reveal a mid-century suburbia of undercurrents, secrets and lives gone astray. Meticulously attentive, compassionate and humorous: no one writes crime like Peter Doyle.' — Vanessa Berry ‘I devoured this book, which will appeal to lovers of Sydney’s history and to fans of Teju Cole’s Small Fates. Doyle writes about the way small flashes of violence reveal the id beneath the city’s ordinary places. Most excitingly, he insists that crime scene photography has its own moral aesthetic, bearing witness to sites where darkness has already won.’ — Delia Falconer 'In lucid, inventive yet artless prose, Doyle reveals Australian mid-century suburbia — specifically Sydney’s south-west — in a whole new light. Suburban Noir is a grainy, lyrical excavation of a landscape that might appear familiar to those who lived through it, or who have seen its myriad mostly idealised representations on screen.' — Fiona Kelly McGregor

Jealousy festering in social media opens the door to violence. Allie loves social media because it makes her feel close to her friends. It never occurs to her that some are jealous of the seemingly perfect lives they see displayed online. The embers of jealousy ignite when one of her friends flaunts his new-found wealth with a party to unveil his lavish home. A tragedy at the party seems to bring all of them closer together. But when one of Allie’s friends goes missing, their lives are suspended. No one knows whether they’re looking for an abductor or a killer. Will social media help them discover the truth? As the cords in Allie’s lifelong friendships start to fray, and her marriage is threatened by her addiction to social media, she discovers secrets she wishes she’d never known. You’ll love this gripping novel of envy and lust because you’ll recognize some of the characters from your own social media circle. Get a copy of this page-turning novel today.

Love, lust and money. Fear of friends finding out about their money problems leads a couple to descend into a darker world than they could ever imagine. Devon worships Jenna. Their friends say he's obsessed with her. Maybe he is, all he knows is that he wants to give her the world. Counting on a lucrative promotion, he bought a multi-million dollar home in Silicon Valley…for her. But it's all good because Jenna adores him. He's a lucky guy, and he's confident he has their finances under control. Jenna worked hard to get where she is, harder than Devon and their friends. She thought she had it all -- a soul mate, a prestigious job, and a gorgeous Mediterranean Revival home. Now, the economy's gone south, Devon's promotion is delayed, and Devon and Jenna are desperate to hide their sky-rocketing debt from their friends. When Jenna's best friend confronts them about the money they owe her for their share of a lavish wedding shower, jealousy and a long-buried secret explode in violence. You’ll love this dark psychological thriller because it could happen to someone you know. Get a copy today and find out if their love survives their crimes.

1940 to 1950 was the heyday of Film Noir, that elusive mixture of stark film lighting and even starker emotions. Many films of that period explored the dark side of society - gangsters, hoodlums, prostitutes and killers - and showed how it corrupted the good and the beautiful. Even worse, sometimes the so called good and the beautiful revealed themselves to be even sicker than the dregs of society.

TELL ME YOUR SECRETS... ‘Tense and compulsive’ Louise Candlish, bestselling author of Our House ‘Suspicion, betrayal and dark secrets abound’ T M Logan, bestselling author of The Mother ‘A delicious web of lies’ Jane Corry, bestselling author of Coming to FInd You

There will be 8.3 billion human beings on Earth by 2030, and the more the better. We have the opportunity to create a world of expansive megacities - including one around old London. Doing so will advance the art, science and processes of manufacturing. But to deploy those abilities we must shrug off the dogma of sustainability that insists only small can be beautiful. Humanity has come a long way since the first modular mega-structure was built at Ur, on land that is now Iraq. There, four millennia ago, and by hand, the Sumerians built a mud-brick ziggurat to their Gods. Today, the green deities of Nature we have invented for ourselves are worshipped with humility. Eco-zealots argue against the mechanised megaforming of landscape and the modularised production of megastructures. The guest editors, Jonathan Schwinge and Ian Abley of the London based research organisation audacity, call for development on a bold scale. They argue that by rapidly super-sizing the built environment society is not made vulnerable to natural or man-made hazards, and that design innovation surpasses bio-mimicry. Designers can learn from materials scientists working at the smallest of scales, and from systems manufacturers with ambitions at the largest. This issue calls for creative thinking about typologies and topologies, and considers what that also means for Africa, China, and Russia. Megacities everywhere demand integration of global systems of transport, utilities and IT in gigantic structures, constantly upgraded, scraping both the sky and the ground, outward into the sea.

“It takes a lot of chutzpah for a book reviewer to write books of her own….But Hallie Ephron…can hold her head high: She does it, and very well, too.” —Seattle Times A recluse who works and lives online must brave the “real world” when her sister goes missing in Come and Find Me—a gripping and ingenious novel of mystery and psychological suspense from Hallie Ephron, author of Never Tell a Lie. Writing about her sensational debut, USA Today noted, “You can imagine Hitchcock curling up with this one.” Aficionados of Rear Window, Vertigo, and North by Northwest—as well as the many fans of Harlan Coben and Mary Higgins Clark—will get a similar charge from Come and Find Me.

FINALIST FOR THE 2018 MARY HIGGINS CLARK AWARD An addictive novel of psychological suspense from the award-winning author of Night Night, Sleep Tight, about three generations of women haunted by a little girl’s disappearance, and the porcelain doll that may hold the key to the truth . . . Seven-year-old Lissie Woodham and her four-year-old sister Janey were playing with their porcelain dolls in the front yard when an adorable puppy scampered by. Eager to pet the pretty dog, Lissie chased after the pup as it ran down the street. When she returned to the yard, Janey’s precious doll was gone . . . and so was Janey. Forty years after Janey went missing, Lis—now a mother with a college-age daughter of her own—still blames herself for what happened. Every year on the anniversary of her sister’s disappearance, their mother, Miss Sorrel, places a classified ad in the local paper with a picture of the toy Janey had with her that day—a one-of-a-kind porcelain doll—offering a generous cash reward for its return. For years, there’s been no response. But this year, the doll came home. It is the first clue in a decades-old mystery that is about to turn into something far more sinister—endangering Lis and the lives of her mother and daughter as well. Someone knows the truth about what happened all those years ago, and is desperate to keep it hidden.

This critical study traces the common origins of film noir and science fiction films, identifying the many instances in which the two have merged to form a distinctive subgenre known as Tech-Noir. From the German Expressionist cinema of the late 1920s to the present-day cyberpunk movement, the book examines more than 100 films in which the common noir elements of crime, mystery, surrealism, and human perversity intersect with the high technology of science fiction. The author also details the hybrid subgenre's considerable influences on contemporary music, fashion, and culture.