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  • Published: 4 June 2024
  • ISBN: 9781761347252
  • Imprint: Penguin
  • Format: Paperback
  • Pages: 432
  • RRP: $26.00

Gathering Dark




A convicted killer. A gifted thief. A vicious crime boss. A disillusioned cop. Together, they’re a missing girl’s only hope.

From Australia’s most exciting and original crime writer, an electrifying thriller set in Los Angeles, featuring a decidedly unconventional team of ‘detectives’.

Blair Harbour, once a wealthy, respected surgeon in Los Angeles, is now an ex-con down on her luck. She’s determined to keep her nose clean to win back custody of her son.

But when her former cellmate, Sneak Lawlor, begs for help to find her missing daughter, Blair is compelled to put her new-found freedom on the line. Joined by LA’s most feared underworld figure, Ada Maverick, the crew of criminals bring outlaw tactics to the search for Dayly.

Detective Jessica Sanchez has always had a difficult relationship with the LAPD. And her inheritance of a $7 million mansion as a reward for catching a killer has just made her police enemy number one.

It’s been ten years since Jessica arrested Blair for the cold-blooded murder of her neighbour. So when Jessica opens the door to the disgraced doctor and her friends early one morning she expects abuse, maybe even violence.

What comes instead is a plea for help.


‘Candice Fox’s brilliant crime novel set in LA will surely garner her a whole new set of readers . . . Gathering Dark is expansive, generous and thoroughly engaging and will surely cement Fox’s reputation as one of Australia’s finest new-gen crime writers. It’s that good.’ Sydney Morning Herald

‘Suspend disbelief and prepare for a wild, funny yet ultimately sobering ride. That’s my advice for anyone new to Candice Fox’s thrillers . . . Fox’s books are models of the professional thriller writer’s craft and Gathering Dark is true to form. Audacious things are done, at a cracking pace, the punchy prose designed to make readers share the characters’ physical sensations.’ The Australian

Gathering Dark is Candice Fox’s best book so far, which makes it bloody good.’ Laurie Oakes

‘Candice Fox’s writing is inventive, thrilling and totally addictive.’ James Patterson

‘The queen of the creepily compulsive thriller.’ WHO magazine

‘A master of the genre . . . grisly, original and exhilarating.’ Saturday Paper

  • Published: 4 June 2024
  • ISBN: 9781761347252
  • Imprint: Penguin
  • Format: Paperback
  • Pages: 432
  • RRP: $26.00

About the author

Candice Fox

Candice Fox is the author of ten internationally bestselling crime novels and the winner of three prestigious Ned Kelly Awards. In fact, she is the only author to have been shortlisted for that award for every single novel. She has also co-written seven New York Times bestsellers with James Patterson, the world’s bestselling thriller writer. Her new solo novel, Devil's Kitchen, will release in March 2024, and her latest collaboration with James Patterson, The Murder Inn, comes out in February 2024.

In 2022 Candice’s fourth book, Crimson Lake, was adapted into a major ABC TV series, called Troppo, with series two currently in production.

A meticulous researcher, Candice has interviewed a serial killer on Death Row, been to prison three times (for work purposes) and while on honeymoon in the US took a road trip to famous crime scenes looking for clues. She has also dined with a former President of the United States, filmed a cameo role in her latest screen adaptation and, as a volunteer for WIRES, has rescued countless wild animals.

She lives in Sydney.

Also by Candice Fox

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Praise for Gathering Dark

Candice Fox’s brilliant crime novel set in LA . . . will surely garner her a whole new set of readers: the ones who haven’t already encountered her via her earlier prize-winning crime novels set in Australia, or through her partnership with James Patterson. But Gathering Dark is in an altogether different league, one headed by the great Elmore Leonard.

Sue Turnbull, The Age

Gathering Dark is expansive, generous and thoroughly engaging, and will surely cement Fox’s reputation as one of Australia’s finest new-gen crime writers. It’s that good.

Sue Turnbull, Sydney Morning Herald

Gathering Dark is Candice Fox’s best book so far, which makes it very bloody good. Takes guts to set it in LA, the territory of so many great crime writers. Should be her big breakthrough book

Laurie Oakes

Perhaps it’s the LA setting, or the fact that all the core characters are women, but something about Gathering Dark feels a little different. It’s like Candice Fox is taking things to a whole new level. The action is bigger and bolder, which is saying something, considering some of the things this author has pulled off in previous books.

Sarah McDuling, Booktopia

Candice Fox, who clearly is not out of her element writing about the dark side of LA, has more than a few tricks up her sleeve to keep the plot pumping along right through to the staggering finale.

Ray Palen, Book Reporter

Addictive, compulsive . . . One of the best crime novels I’ve read this year.

Samantha Downing, author of My Lovely Wife

Tight plot, polished writing, snappy dialogue and a great dose of dark humour already makes this excellent crime, but then Candice adds a cast of complex, interesting, extremely compelling female characters, and Gathering Dark immediately soars to the top of a genre normally inhabited by complicated men.

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Awards & recognition

Ned Kelly Award for Best Fiction

Shortlisted  •  2021  •  Ned Kelly Award for Best Fiction

Sisters in Crime Davitt Award

Shortlisted  •  2021  •  Best Adult Crime

Sisters in Crime Davitt Award

Longlisted  •  2021  •  Fiction

Discover more

Video
Gathering Dark by Candice Fox

From Australia's most exciting and original crime writer comes another electrifying thriller, set in Los Angeles, introducing a new – and decidedly unconventional – team of 'detectives'. https://www.penguin.com.au/books/gathering-dark-9780143789178