Discover the books of Melissa Pouliot

Welcome to the home of bestselling Australian crime mystery author Melissa Pouliot. The talented author of page-turning crime mysteries translates her passion and personal missing persons tragedy into fiction novels where every story has a back story and a twist.

NEW RELEASE COMING 22-2-22

SEARCH FOR SKY: How many secrets can the outback keep?

In Australia Ayala Philips is still missing.
So is Keely Johnson.
So are thousands of others.
Their cases are getting colder and Rhiannon McVee’s hopes of solving them are fading.
But hope can come from the most surprising of places.
When someone starts leaving clues in the remote Australian outback, leading Rhiannon closer and closer to a suspected serial killer, will the next body she discovers be Ayala, Keely or someone else?
Crime fiction inspired by real life, written by the cousin of one of Australia’s most compelling and heartbreaking missing persons cases.

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Want to know more?
Listen to this radio interview where Melissa talks about books missing persons and what inspires her to keep writing.

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About Melissa

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Missing Persons

Connect with Melissa

New Releases

Having been a writer her whole life through a media career, Melissa Pouliot always wanted to write books. In 2013, after the National Missing Persons Coordination Centre and NSW Police made a highly public appeal for information about her missing cousin Ursula Barwick, Melissa started her first crime fiction novel.

She set Write About Me in the eighties in Kings Cross, Sydney – the time and place of the last known sighting of Ursula. Write About Me reached number one status on Amazon bestseller lists within months of its release. It also prompted people to come forward with new information about Ursula, including letters to a school friend that proved police had several facts wrong including the date she went missing.

In 2014 Kings Cross Detectives started a new investigation into Ursula’s mysterious cold case.

Melissa kept writing as a way of keeping attention on Ursula, with each book launch providing an opportunity to plead for people to come forward. Her crime thriller Detective Rhiannon McVee series so far includes FIND ME, When You Find Me and You’ll Never Find Me. These page-turning novels have her readers transfixed on what’s going to happen next.

Writing also helped keep Melissa work through reliving the trauma of losing Ursula and wondering for almost three decades if she was dead or alive.

FOUND

Five frantic years after her first public conversation about Ursula, Melissa published FOUND. It’s release coincided with the real-life drama that unfolded when detectives discovered Ursula died only weeks after her disappearance.

All Melissa’s novels are all endorsed by the Australian Federal Police National Missing Persons Coordination Centre for raising awareness for missing people. They have featured at international conferences and captured the hearts and minds of other families of missing people around the world.

LASTING LEGACY

Through her public conversations Melissa has shown her beautiful, fun-loving, outgoing, fabulously witty, adventurous and brave cousin Ursula is not just another one-dimensional face on a missing persons’ poster.

“Ursula is a loving, and much loved, member of my family, and she will always be remembered. Her lasting legacy is that it is never too late to find your missing person.”

KIND WORDS for Write About Me

Wow… I couldn’t put this book down

Fleur Ferris, Australian YA author

KIND WORDS for Write About Me

An excellent read…with global implications

Chris Gould, Child-Safe International & Travel Safe founder, retired UK Detective Chief Superintendent

KIND WORDS for FIND ME

A fast paced, enthralling novel which will consume you from the first page

Natasha Gilmour, Author of BEING, JOY

KIND WORDS for FIND ME

Love, love, loved it. Read it in one day, I couldn’t put it down. A mixture of mystery, romance and crime, set in the 80s. The sections in the Australian outback were my favourite. Can’t wait to see what happens next

Deborah Hawkins, US crime thriller author

KIND WORDS for When You Find Me

The characters grow and develop naturally as if they could actually be real people in the real world

Melissa Fogarty, MJ Editing

KIND WORDS for You’ll Never Find Me

Love the Australian setting! Just wish I could keep reading…. Don’t stop writing. I have been in another world this afternoon. A nice much needed break from my usual life

Carolyn Jourdan, New York Times bestselling author

KIND WORDS for When You Find Me

The characters were fully developed and alive and their stories real. If left me championing for them. But as in real life there were multiple outcomes. I will think of these folks and wonder about them like real life

Shirley Townsend, Goodreads

KIND WORDS for FOUND

Every now and then a writer comes along whose words raise the hair on the back of your neck, not because they’re scary but because the words so perfectly describe the scene, you’re inescapably right in there seeing what the characters are seeing and feeling exactly what they’re feeling. So it is with Melissa Pouliot’s… Read more “KIND WORDS for FOUND”

Annabelle Brayley, author of Bush Doctors & Vietnam Nurses

KIND WORDS for FOUND

A fabulous sequel to Write About Me which had me on the edge of my seat more than once. I loved revisiting my favourite characters and meeting new ones while the search continues for their missing Annabelle. The author’s personal experience adds a whole new dimension to the story, and the words sing off the… Read more “KIND WORDS for FOUND”

Kristina Kaine, Goodreads

KIND WORDS for FOUND

A moving and powerful read. Pouliot deftly illustrates the devastation that is caused by the unexplained disappearance of a loved one, and how people use different strategies to cope with the heartache and frustration that comes when answers are elusive and closure is unforthcoming

Marianne, Goodreads

KIND WORDS for You’ll Never Find Me

I love this whole series. I hate finishing these books and having to wait for the next one. They always end on a cliffhanger and keep you hanging. They are the sort of books you will read in a day. You won’t be able to put them down!

Jess Meyer, Goodreads