BOOK HAUL – NEW 2026 AUSTRALIAN/NEW ZEALAND CRIME NOVELS

2025 is rapidly coming to a close and the books are beginning to pile up for 2026!

I will be doing a post on my most anticipated titles for 2026 in the New Year, but here are six of the 2026 Australian and New Zealand crime releases that I have already received.

Tim Ayliffe’s Dark Desert Road, (Echo, 6 January 2026), is one of the books that I am most excited about.

Moving away from his recent series about journalist John Bailey, Ayliffe takes a different approach with Dark Desert Road which introduces a new central character in the form of burnt-out police officer Kit McCarthy. Traversing the back blocks of rural Australia and delving into the rising threat of sovereign citizens, it sounds as if Dark Desert Road has a good gritty edge to it.

The publisher has provided the following information about it:

“Kit McCarthy hasn’t seen her identical twin sister, Billie, in more than a decade.

The sisters don’t see eye to eye, which is understandable, considering Kit’s a police officer and Billie followed their violent father into a life of crime.

Kit is no angel. Burnt out by years working in child protection, she has been accused of using excessive force in the arrest of a violent drunk. Kit has just been ordered to take time off work when she gets a frantic message from Billie, telling her she has a young son and that somebody is trying to kill her.

And then Billie disappears.

Determined to find her estranged sister, Kit’s only lead comes after visiting their father in prison. Malcolm McCarthy claims Billie married a former United States Marine and has been living with a group of sovereign citizens in the desert country of the New South Wales Riverina.

Kit’s journey to find Billie takes her through shuttered towns destroyed by drought, where everybody owns guns, nobody talks to cops, and people get lost for a reason.

Out here a war is brewing between a ruthless bikie gang and a separatist community that is re-engaging with society in the most violent way.

Kit will risk everything to find her sister and the nephew she never knew she had.

But does Billie really want to be saved?”

I have started reading Dark Desert Road and it is certainly living up to its promise so far! Dark Desert Road is released in Australia on 6 January 2026. It will be available on Kindle and Audible in the United Kingdom on the same day.

Also offering a harsh rural backdrop and edgy local citizens is Sam Elliott’s debut novel Haze, (Macmillan, 24 February 2026).

The publishers have provided the following detail:

“The dying coastal town of Broughlet is being torn apart by wildfires, and the locals suspect arson.

A cult devoted to fire.

The sinister People’s Cleansing Light is suspected of setting the blazes.

A missing child.

Amid the choking black smog, Constable Dahlia Turner discovers a horrifying crime – her best friends have been murdered and their son abducted. Finding him will mean confronting the violent past she’s spent years trying to outrun.

But as danger closes in around her, can Dahlia uncover the truth before it burns away forever?”

Haze is released in Australia on 24 February 2026.

After Ayliffe’s Dark Desert Road, J. P. Pomare’s The Gambler, (Hachette, 24 February 2026), is probably the book that I am most looking forward to reading in 2026. Pomare has been on a real quality roll lately, with last year’s 17 Years Later and some very good Audible original stories, and his new book seems set to continue that trend.

The Gambler again features private eye Vince Reid who we first met in Pomare’s widely acclaimed The Wrong Woman. The story is set in America, and has Reid on the path of some very dangerous players.

The publisher has provided the following details:

“PI Vince Reid is visiting an old friend when he’s offered a case he can’t refuse: Why did a respected local woman open fire at a political rally, killing a promising young university graduate? It’s easy money, he’s told. A sure thing.

But as Reid delves further into the case, the stakes are higher than he imagined. There are invisible players pulling the strings. Will he walk away a winner or pay for the ultimate gamble with his life?”

The Gambler will be released in Australia on 24 February 2026. No release details are available for overseas.

Geoff Parkes make an impressive entry into the local crime writing arena with his debut, When The Deep, Dark Bush Swallows You Whole from early this year. The First Law Of The Bush, (Penguin, 6 January 2026), is a follow up to that book and returns to New Zealand’s rugged King Country.

Set in 1994, ten years after the events in When The Deep, Dark Bush Swallows You Whole, it again features Ryan Bradley who has only recently returned to the small rural town of Nashville.

The publisher has provided the following description:

“It’s a beautiful day to be alive, Bill Dickerson thought, seconds before he tumbled from the viaduct onto the jagged rocks below . . .

His awful death made national news. But still, one year on, Bill’s widow Carol has received no explanation about what happened. Was it suicide? An accident? Maybe murder?

So Carol hires lawyer Ryan Bradley in her fight for justice. Ryan has just returned to the remote town of Nashville after ten years away, so he’s in no position to turn down work.

Except the case seems hopeless from the start. Bill’s employer is denying responsibility, Carol’s friends are shunning her, and the only witnesses – co-workers Gav Coates and Wati Reynolds – can shed no light on the tragic fall. Even Senior Sergeant ‘Stinger’ Nettle is too busy turning a blind eye to Wati’s illegal schemes to dig deeper into the death.

But in small towns, nothing is quite what it seems. And for one Nashville resident the wrong question will come at a deadly price.”

Parkes’ first novel was a richly described tale that was strong on atmosphere and very nuanced characters. It will be interesting to see where he goes with The First Law Of The Bush, which is out early in 2026.

Lisa Walker’s The Pact, (HQ, 13 January 2026), combines elements of the psychological suspense, academia and destination thrillers genres in a heady mixture that seems destined to find a popular audience base over the Australian summer holiday period.

The publisher has provided the following details:

“Tess enters the prestigious and exclusive Ravensthorpe Writing College with dreams of literary greatness, but soon discovers that ambition comes at a cost.

Drawn into a tight-knit group with fellow writers Ethan, Theo, and Jaz, Tess’s world is upended when their charismatic tutor is found dead. Believing someone in their circle is responsible, Tess flees the elite literary world and abandons the future she once craved.

Three years later, an enigmatic invitation to walk the Camino de Santiago offers Tess a chance to uncover the truth. Reunited with her former friends, including Ethan, now a literary star, Tess realises the past isn’t finished with her. Someone knows what really happened that night, and they’ll do anything to keep it buried.”

The Pact is released in Australia on 13 January 2026 and in the United Kingdom in late January 2026. Release in the United States is scheduled for June 2026.

Finally, rounding out the six I have so far received is Kirstyn McDermott’s rural, gothic, suspense tale, What The Bones Know (HQ, 24 February 2026).

The publishers have provided the following details:

“A child’s bones, a lost girl, a mind adrift – sometimes what is lost comes back to haunt you…from an award-winning author comes a contemporary gothic tale of guilt, grief and redemption.

In the village of Kiln Creek in the Victorian Highlands, a ghost gum falls in a storm. Tangled in its roots are the bones of a small child and the tattered remains of her clothing, including a pair of bright red sneakers.

Single mum Jude Mees is in her early forties and struggling to get her business off the ground while raising her ten-year-old daughter Katie, and managing a fractious relationship with her controlling ex-husband. But when Jude learns that her mother, Nance, who still lives alone on the family property in Kiln Creek, is showing troubling signs of dementia she has no option other than to return and check on her. And indeed, all is not well at the farm. Nance is slowly drifting off into her own world, and there are other disturbing occurrences. Strange smells, inexplicably wet footprints, a voice in the night. As her daughter starts to sleepwalk and Jude’s nightmares begin to take over her days, she begins to wonder whether her imagination is out of control or if something more sinister is happening…

A taut, claustrophobic exploration of what it means to be haunted – by our past, by fractured relationships, by a place we thought we knew and by our own unreliable memories.”

It sounds intriguing. What The Bones Know is released in Australia on 24 February 2026. It is released in the United Kingdom on the same day (Kindle and Audible only).

I have also received a number of good 2026 releases by overseas authors, including new books by Anthony Horowitz, C. J. Box and Laura Dave. So at this early stage, 2026 is already shaping up to be another good ‘reading’ year.

Which of the above titles appeal the most to you?