Environmental Fiction Mystery

Read by Peter Kenny, award-winning narrator of the Culture series by Iain M. Banks. In a ravaged near-future England, a private detective with psychic powers might be the last hope standing between mankind and total collapse. Mindstar Rising is the first cyberpunk thriller in Peter F. Hamilton's...

When construction workers uncover preserved human remains at Kingfisher Station—a luxury resort development in rural Australia—Detective Maya Thorne is called back to the hometown she fled as a teenager. The discovery is eerily similar to a case she solved months earlier, but this time it's personal: the development borders her childhood home, which she abandoned. The victim is identified as Elaine Mercer, an environmental consultant who disappeared eight years ago while investigating water rights during the region's worst drought in decades. Maya quickly discovers that Elaine had ...

When Detective Maya Thorne is summoned back to Warragulla—the rural Australian hometown she swore never to revisit—she expects a routine investigation. Skeletal remains have been discovered in a drought-exposed creek bed at Billabong Station, likely from the bushfires that ravaged the region three years ago. But as the parched earth gives up its secrets, Maya finds herself excavating more than just bones. The remains belong to Cameron Lockhart, a local landowner who disappeared during the fires, and someone put a bullet in his head before burying him where the flames would erase the ...

When Louise Root, a new client of Cecil Younger, is found murdered, the private investigator finds himself in the middle of an environmental law violation that has deadly repercussions. Cecil finds he is unable to leave behind Root, especially after her ex-lover Hannah asks him for help. On top of it all, Global Mining, the company that runs the gold mine where Root's body was found, hires Younger to get the dirt on an environmentalist who has a connection to the victim. In the midst of all this, Cecil's personal life is fraying.

When Detective Constable Lillian Tate arrives at a remote paleontological research site in the harsh Nullarbor Plain, she expects a routine missing person case. Dr. Noah Henshaw, a respected scientist studying ancient fossils, has vanished into the red dust of the Australian desert. What begins as a straightforward welfare check quickly transforms into something more sinister. The discovery of Dr. Henshaw's body reveals a brutal murder that shatters the quiet academic world of fossil research and threatens to expose secrets that powerful people will kill to protect. As Tate delves deeper ...

In the scorching heat of Alice Springs, where temperatures regularly exceed 40°C, Detective Senior Constable Sarah Reeves is called to investigate when gallery owner Maxwell Reid is found dead among his prized Aboriginal artworks. What begins as an apparent poisoning soon reveals a sophisticated art forgery operation exploiting indigenous artists and their cultural heritage. When evidence points to multiple suspects—from rival gallery owners to exploited Aboriginal artists with legitimate grievances—Sarah must navigate both the brutal summer heat and the closed ranks of a town where ...

In the mist-laced valleys near Coniston Water, where ancient fells cradle secrets older than memory, DI Stone is called to a burning barn. Amid the charred wreckage lies something the fire couldn’t consume—a body, its leathery skin and intact features echoing the bog burials of the Iron Age. The victim was a divisive advocate whose ecological vision clashed violently with Cumbria’s farmers. But when a second body surfaces—this one smoke-cured—Stone realises he’s not chasing a lone killer, but unravelling a macabre manifesto. Each victim bears the mark of a different preservation...

When Detective Senior Constable Sarah Chen finds prominent Aboriginal rights lawyer David Namatjira dead at the bottom of Emily Gap, what appears to be a hiking accident quickly reveals itself as calculated murder. David's death coincides with the systematic ransacking of his Legal Aid office, where crucial files documenting mining company corruption have been stolen. His legal challenges cost Northern Territory Minerals millions while protecting sacred Aboriginal sites from illegal exploration, giving corporate executives powerful motives for eliminating their most effective opponent. But ...

In the isolated mountains of Coventry Ridge, where fog-shrouded forests hide generations of secrets, former FBI profiler Alex Harlan returns to his hometown after a five-year absence, drawn back by a murder bearing haunting similarities to his mother's unsolved death decades earlier. What begins as a reluctant consultation with local sheriff Maggie Blackburn evolves into something far more sinister, revealing connections between the recent killings and powerful interests operating in the shadows of the Appalachian ridges. When the mutilated body of a local man is discovered along a remote ...

The wind had always been Haven's End's greatest blessing. For over two centuries, the small coastal town had thrived on the perpetual sea breeze that swept across its weathered docks and salt-stained streets. Local fishermen relied on it to fill their sails. Tourists came from hundreds of miles away just to feel the constant, gentle caress of air that never seemed to still. The wind was woven into the town's identity like threads in a tapestry—mentioned in every brochure, celebrated in festivals, and credited with the unusually long lifespans of its residents. But on the morning of ...

From the stars they came to study us. Instead, they discovered what it truly means to be human. When five advanced alien scientists crash-land on Earth, their mission of passive observation becomes a desperate year-long struggle to understand humanity's true nature. Disguised as humans and embedded in key positions across society—a political consultant, an environmental researcher, a university professor, a military contractor, and a hospital doctor—they discover that Earth's inhabitants are far more complex than their data suggested. Led by Captain Zara, the youngest commander in her ...

Welcome to Backyard County, Mississippi—where the dirt is rich, the compost is gourmet, and the worms are smarter than they look. Meet Riley the Red Worm, a scrappy, sharp-witted underdog who just wants peace, quiet, and a prime spot in the compost heap. But when the legendary Night Crawler Nate slithers in from Fisher’s County with charm, muscle, and a mysterious agenda, Riley finds himself in the middle of the squirmiest showdown the soil has ever seen. With an all-star cast of bug buddies, a moldy villain threatening the entire garden, and a secret human experiment creeping closer ...

The first body should have been a warning. The second, a cry for help. By the third, Deputy Sue Calhoun knows a killer is hunting in Willow Creek—and she's running out of time. Then he arrives. Pastor Will Hayes has eyes that see straight through her defenses and a smile that makes her forget she's sworn off charming men. When he takes her hand during Sunday service, Sue feels something she thought was dead—hope. But as she falls deeper under his spell, the bodies keep piling up, and a horrifying pattern emerges. Is he the salvation her broken heart desperately needs—or the predator ...

When the Earth began to change, it didn’t start with earthquakes or fire—it began with silence. Cracks opened in the ground, not just in stone, but in memory, in truth, and in time itself. As strange breaches appear across the globe and reality begins to bend sideways, a team of scientists, skeptics, and dreamers must uncover what the planet is trying to say before it's too late. This is not a tale of destruction. It’s a story of recalibration. Of forgotten agreements. Of second chances whispered through roots, reflections, and rain. Join Kip, Juno, Langston, and Mara on a journey ...

1911, on a winter's night in arid New South Wales wool country, mounted trooper Augustus Hawkins discovers the bodies of three young people. They are scions of the richest family in the district, savagely murdered on a road that Hawkins should have been patrolling, had he not been busy bedding the local schoolteacher.

Detective Alex Reilly thought his transfer to the remote desert town of Coober Pedy would be a quiet assignment—a chance to rebuild his damaged career far from the spotlight. But when Harold Finch, part-owner of the town's vital water supply, is found dead in his underground home, what appears to be a tragic accident quickly reveals itself as something far more sinister. As Reilly investigates, he discovers that Harold's death is connected to a sophisticated conspiracy targeting the community's most precious resource: water. Environmental engineer Daphne Traynor seems helpful at first, ...

In the isolated coastal town of Wirramurra Bay, where salt winds carry secrets across limestone cliffs and drought has left the landscape bone-dry, Detective Jodi Brennan arrives for what should be a punishment posting. What begins as the apparent suicide of veterinarian Dr. Sarah Kellerman evolves into something far more sinister, revealing connections between livestock poisoning and powerful corporate interests operating in the shadows of rural Australia. When Jodi discovers that Sarah was investigating environmental contamination targeting vulnerable farming families, she must navigate ...

If Zufar al-Massoud, the celebrated leader of the Salafist jihadists, accomplishes his planned terrorist act, Thanksgiving Day in the U.S. will forever be known as America's Day of Blood. He and his fellow conspirators will not only place multiple IEDs along the New York City Macy's parade route, slaughtering thousands of onlookers but will release canisters of sarin gas on the subway landings in both New York and Washington, D.C.

Red Evans, is a water baby, born after The Floods submerged all but a chain of tiny islands. Her bleak life in the government-run Estates becomes even worse when her father is killed in an explosion at his research lab. As rumours swirl, Red becomes convinced her father was murdered. His previous role on The Climate Emergency Committee is shrouded in secrecy, but Red knows he believed the earth still had the power to heal itself. A belief opposed by the political leader currently in power. As the water begins to rise again, the two powerful leaders battle for control, and civil unrest ...

Rowan Tate's life on her Flint Hills ranch is a quiet battle against personal grief and mounting financial pressure. But when her cherished Blue Creek runs thick with a rainbow film and her calves fall gravely ill, a new, more urgent fight begins. Caught between a looming bank foreclosure, orchestrated by an increasingly compromised bank officer, Mason Crowley, and the powerful, entrenched Reddick Agricultural, Rowan faces a stark choice: drown in silence or stand firm against those who seek to silence her and poison her land. Alongside her loyal, sharp-witted friend Alma, the principled ...