Born and raised in New Zealand, I moved to Western Australia with a single suitcase when I was nineteen years old. Since then, I've packed a lot into my life, working hard in predominantly accounting, IT and management roles, but also spending a year touring the world. I've lived in the central business districts of large cities, suburbia, idyllic seaside locations, rural areas, bushland, and remote desert mining camps.

Now based in rural Victoria, Australia, I am a fulltime writer of fast-paced mystery and suspense novels in contemporary Australian settings. All my books are quick, easy reads with no gratuitous sex or violence – the type of books I enjoy as a reader. However, my characters occasionally swear.

Outside of writing and reading, my main interests are design and photography. I like to laugh, drink coffee, spend time alone, spend time in company, and get close to nature. I dislike crowds, hospitals and offal.

 



 

 

1. I live on a farm with no visible neighbours. Of the human variety, at least. The sulphur-crested cockatoos can be the neighbours from hell – raucous and destructive.


2. Unlike many people, I actually like spiders and snakes. They fascinate me.


3. My man does all the cooking in our house. He even prepares breakfast every day. Talk about spoilt. I bake him a birthday cake once a year. I’d say that was a fair swap. :)


4. I love picnics in the bush, regardless of the weather, and like to get a fix every week. It’s also when I tend do most of my reading.


5. I often say that all my life experiences are brought to bear in my writing, but it wasn't until my last novel, Bitter Nothings, that I delved into my own family experiences. And that’s probably because enough years have passed that I can now talk openly about it. In Bitter Nothings, the protagonist’s mother committed suicide on what would've been her and her estranged husband’s thirtieth wedding anniversary. In one of those truth-is-stranger-than-fiction twists, my mother committed suicide on my parents’ twenty-fifth wedding anniversary. Obviously the details and motives are different and my parents were still married, but the emotion and questions are still the same.


6. I’m an avid reader of crime – both fiction and non-fiction –almost to the exclusivity of all else, and can’t go to sleep until I've read at least a couple of pages of murder and mayhem.


7. Green at heart, I’m a nature and animal lover. You might even consider me a tree-hugger.


8. I have a gift for all things geek (maths was my favourite subject at school) but I was also blessed with artistic genes. A strange blend, I agree.


9. I am bit of a perfectionist, but in recent years, less so about those things that don’t matter as much.


10. I sleep on an unbaffled waterbed and wouldn't be without it. The fun part is getting out of it, but I think I have it sussed now.

 

 

 

 

Half her family have been murdered in their beds. Her father is the prime suspect. And things are about to get a whole lot worse…

Graphic designer Dervla Johns wakes one morning to the news that her father, Warren, is missing and her stepmother and step-siblings were found dead in their beds. While the police hunt for Warren, Dervla searches for answers. Could her father really be a killer? Refusing to be warned off by police threats, or intimidated by the reporter who appears to be following her, she delves into her family’s past.

But as she uncovers one shocking secret after another, Dervla’s world is rocked further by another murder – and she finds herself desperately trying to untangle a web of illicit love and betrayal. Soon, Dervla must face her greatest fear… or suffer the same deadly fate as her stepmother.

“If you like mystery fiction with a psychological flair, Vicki Tyley will deliver. She understands that fiction is about real people, and that real people have their dangerous flaws.” –Scott Nicholson, Bestselling author of Liquid Fear