AustCrimeFiction - All Blogs

Murder on the Eiffel Tower: A Victor Legris Mystery by Claude Izner- Gallic Books (2007), Paperback, 304 pages [Our New Books - LibraryThing]

Cops : true stories from Australian police by Vikki Petraitis - Rowville, Vic. : Five Mile Press, 2005. [Our New Books - LibraryThing)]

Over the years Vikki has written some terrific True Crime books (and she's currently working on fiction!) but this was one book that I lately realised I didn't have here - so now I've filled that gap!

Fatal tango by Wolfram Fleischhauer - Sydney : Pan Macmillan, 2010. [Our New Books - LibraryThing]

Upside:  made it down to Melbourne for Friday night's Sisters in Crime event with Leigh Redhead and Wendy James.  Laughed a lot.  Great night.

Downside:  more than a bit brain dead on Saturday after a 2.00am return home and a dog induced early rise (seems we needed to be reminded of our priorities).

So I was looking for something entertaining to read on Saturday in front of the fire.  Something told me that Blood in the Cotswolds by Rebecca Tope would be just the thing.

From the Blurb:

The Woodcutter by Reginald Hill - HarperCollins (2010), Hardcover, 400 pages [Our New Books - LibraryThing)]

I've been thinking for a while that I've got a problem in the way I mention books.  I have this "slight" tendency to end up with way more books on Mt TBR in a month than I actually can manage to read.

I really like collections of short stories but they are sometimes hard to find.  This is a really great collection with stories by a lot of very well known writers from the UK:

Like I'd have a book set in the Victorian Goldfields lying around here for long.   It's just fascinating to read anything set in this vast part of Victoria, in the days of the goldrush - although this book is set somewhere higher and on the other side of Bendigo from me :)  Mind you, reading about floods in the goldfields - strangely alluring after this drought...

From the Blurb:

Under ceaseless rains, the Murray has burst its banks and engulfed the remote Mosquito Creek goldfield.  Life on the diggings just got even tougher.

Murder in Utopia by Philip McLaren(link is external) - Federal, N.S.W. : Cockatoo Books, 2008. [Our New Books - LibraryThing(link is external)]

There's absolutely no way in this world that a new Philip McLaren crime fiction book will sit long unread in this house and besides, a cold wet windy weekend means a book in front of the fire!

Not being much of a reader of this sort of historical fiction, it's a particularly good thing to step outside my comfort zone for an author who lives well within my comfort zone - or at least in Central Victoria :)

From the Blurb:

Rome is bathed in blood as the Emperor Tiberius is tormented by drug-fuelled terrors of treason.   The innocent are butchered while the guilty do evil in darkness.  None are guiltier than the Emperor's devoted and deluded 'son', Sejanus.

Opening Lines:

The fourth book in the Jill Jackson series, Watch the World Burn covers the subject matter that I've been hoping Leah would get to - psychopathic behaviour.  (Each of the books has a particular subject matter).

From the Blurb:

Miriam Caine is dining with her son in an up-market restaurant when she bursts into flame.

Opening Lines:

Thursday, 25 November 8pm   At eight pm, Troy Berrigan knew everything was going perfectly. 

And then the screaming began.

Back in Russia, with side trips to Switzerland, England and other European locales in Miranda Darling's first book The Troika Dolls.  And this is a most unexpected pleasure.  Exactly what you'd not expect from a book that does concentrate quite a bit on the female central characters physical appearance.  But it concentrates a lot more on her abilities and her doubts and her all-round reality.  A strong female lead in a new book by a strong new female writer.  In Australia.  Happy reader here.

From the Blurb:

This is the latest novel from Michael Koryta - yet another author that I'm dreadfully behind with.  Picking up this one goes some way towards fixing that, but I do have to read a few from his backlist as well.

From the Blurb:

Congratulations to Peter Temple, who has just been announced as the 2010 Miles Franklin winner:

http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2010/06/22/2934164.htm

This is a book that I was really keen to get hold of, and very interested to read as soon as it arrived.  So I'm not sure why, but I am really struggling with it.  It may be that it will have to be set aside until I can try again, perhaps with my head clearer or when I'm more willing to accept that the central storyline seems to be drifting there, just slightly out of reach.

From the Blurb:

I'm probably as surprised as everybody else to be reading this book - it's not my normal fare - but then again I'm not even sure I have a "normal" fare anymore.  I tend to SPLASH around a lot.

From the Blurb:

Tara Sharp might have been just another unemployable, twenty-something, ex-private school girl.  But Tara has an uncanny gift for reading people - a gift that has lost her a job or two, but which also makes her a very handy investigator.

Opening Lines:

I'm lying again - I picked this up over the long weekend, meant to blog post about it, got reading.  Didn't put it down again until I'd finished it.  Review on its way.

From the Blurb:

Emily Tempest.  Small, black, snaky as a taipan's tooth: the woman least likely to pursue a career in policing.

Opening Lines:

I closed my eyes, felt the ragged harmonies flowing thorugh my head.

The blurb gives you the general outline, this is flagged as an explosive, gritty, hilarious and truly original book.  It's definitely an unexpected styling.  Still making up my mind about the rest of the claims :)

From the Blurb:

Set in 1930's Australia, this book is a combination crime fiction, combination historical look at a very worrying and frankly weird as period of Australian history - between the 2 world wars, the Fascist power struggle against the supposed Communist threat. 

From the Blurb:

Rowland Sinclair is an artist and a gentleman.  In Australia's 1930s, the Sinclair name is respectable and influential, yet Rowland has a talent for scandal.

As nice as it is to catch up with a favourite series character, it's also really interesting to see a favourite author branching out in a new direction.  The Diggers Rest Hotel introduces a new central character - Charlie Berlin and the blurb to this book is very intriguing.

From the Blurb:

Like there would be a new Pufferfish mystery in the house that I wouldn't pick up immediately.  Especially as this wasn't the easiest book in the world to get hold of.

But the joy of a new Pufferfish entry is just fantastic.

From the Blurb:

How long should long service leave be?

It's been a little bit of a wait since Cherry Pie, but Thrill City is finally here.  And there's more than a touch of the dryly funny about the opening scenario - a Crime Writer, after arranging to shadow PI Simone Kirsch to add authenticity to his next book, meets up with his ex-wife and her new lover on a panel at a Writers Festival, after which everything goes very pear-shaped.

The latest outing from Leigh Redhead is definitely showing some serious series development and it's just an out and out joy to be spending time with Simone and Chloe again.

The really good thing about finally getting some wet weather in these parts is that you get some reading done!  So I'm really doing some catching up.  IN THE DARK is a standalone from the wonderful Mark Billingham which has been lurking here for quite some time.

From the Blurb:

A deadly crash

A dangerous quest

A shocking twist

Opening Lines:

Helen Weeks was used to waking up feeling sick, feeling like she'd hardly slept, and feeling like she was on her own, whether Paul was lying beside her or not.

Doing some more catching up, this is flagged as the second book from the author of International Bestseller, The Juror (which I haven't read).

From the Blurb:

When grifters Shaw and Romeo pull up at a convenience store in Georgia, their only thought is to fix a faulty tyre and be on their way to Florida.

But this happens to be the store from which a $318 million jackpot ticket has just been sold - and when the pretty clerk accidentally reveals the identity of the winning family, Shaw hatches a terrifyingly audacious plan.

There is absolutely no such thing as absolutes.

Which probably means that sentence doesn't exist.  Or something.

But a while ago I decided I was totally over books that put you directly in the mind of a serial killer.

And then I get RANDOM by Craig Robertson and I'm not totally over being in the mind of all serial killers.

From the Blurb:

I've been looking for a copy of this short story anthology for such a long time, that I was really really pleased when I eventually found a copy of it in one of my favourite little bookshops in Bendigo.  Fans of Garry's work - both the Wyatt and Challis novels will probably find, as I did, that there are a few of these that ring bells in later full-blown novels.  There are also some that don't and there are some that have obviously been informed by events in Garry's own life.

From the Blurb:

Neil Cross rapidly hit my Must Be Read immediately list, and there's nothing whatsoever going on to indicate that he's going to drop from that (granted long) gathering anytime soon.

CAPTURED is due out "in late May" - it's another standalone story so you won't need to have read NATURAL HISTORY or BURIAL to pick this one up - but seriously - if you haven't read either of those two - you're missing out.

From the Blurb:

Golden Relic was originally released in 1997 as an online serialised novel.  At Clan Destine Press (disclaimer - I'm the person who did the "techy" stuff in turning the manuscript into an ebook), we decided a while ago that this book deserved another Internet outing.

In the words of the author "Well, what I did in 1997 makes me a pioneer of the World Wide Web.

    Yep, me, Lindy Cameron, Australian crime writer – an Internet Pioneer. And I deserve those capital letters, because I really did boldly go where none had gone before." 

This is the first novel from Colin McLaren, previously he has written a true crime book, INFILTRATION, about his time as one of Australia's most experienced taskforce detectives.

The story in ON THE RUN is going to ring some bells with anyone who has read INFILTRATION as there does appear to be a bit of synergy.  Which makes it just that slightly more tantalising, and ever so slightly worrying all at the same time :)

From the Blurb:

I've been looking forward to this book since I first saw the very stylish cover that was produced for Lindy's latest, and Ruth's first True Crime book.  Now that I've typed that I realise how odd that probably sounds.  This is, after all, a book about Australia's worst Female murderers.

It's an odd thing but I suspect people will be slightly more disturbed by the idea of female thrill killers, opportunistic killers or simply women who kill because they can.  Probably some daft idea in society about women's role and nature. 

From the Blurb:

The Ned Kelly nominations for 2010 have been released:

http://www.nedkellyawards.com/2010.html(link is external)

(Links to available reviews included).

Okay, so I'm officially embarrassed.

I knew I'd had this book for a while, but I didn't quite realise how long.

Nor have I got a single good reason for why it took me so long to pick it up, because I liked the first book "I SEE YOU".

Lazy review housekeeping is the only excuse I've got which is why I'm so embarrassed.

This is one of those true crime books that I've had here since it was published, and I've tried on a few occasions to pick it up - and the subject matter defeated me everytime.

Now I guess the question remains why on earth would you even want to read a book about such an horrific murderer.  The answer has to be that I read these things to try to get an understanding.  Sometimes it works, sometimes I'm still baffled.

From the Blurb:

This is the second book from Andy L Semple - and it's a mixture of global conspiracy, thriller, virus threat and a lot of dead bodies.  A lot of dead bodies!

From the Blurb:

In the increasingly turbulent atmosphere of international environmentalism, the once peaceful grass roots climate change group - The Eden Movement - has been covertly taken over by the mysterious figure known only to his legion of radical followers as Prime.

Opening Lines:

Not a Wallender novel, the latest book from Henning Mankell is set in Sweden and China.  The blurb includes a tantalising opening line:  "Revenge Can Take More than a Lifetime..."

From the Blurb:

One cold January day the police are called to a sleepy little hamlet in the north of Sweden where they find the victim of a savage murder lying in the snow.  As they begin their investigation they notice that the village seems eerily quiet and deserted.  Going from house to house, looking for witnesses, they uncover a crime unprecedented in Swedish history.

I've been a bit reticent about this book, not being a huge fan of cyber-thrillers, but I'm really pleased I picked up this book now.  Particularly with the current stories flying around about mining company computer systems being hacked - interesting to say the least.

From the Blurb:

I've really really really been looking forward to this second Jack Susko books - loved the first one (A Deadly Business).  Really like the slightly wise-cracking (with distinctly Australian tone), of a bookseller turned Accidental Detective, just trying to get by on a daily basis.

From the Blurb:

So I'm a fickle reader.  I always maintain that blurbs / comparisons / recommendations all that stuff on a cover don't mean a thing.  But this book arrived, and there was this "perfect read for fans of Child 44, Angels and Demons...." bit in the blurb.  Angels and Demons probably didn't have the affect that the publicist might have been looking for, but I definitely did love Child 44 - and I noticed at the end of the book there is the true timeline of events around the death of the Romanovs (hate fiction that plays too much with history - my brain explodes trying to rememb

This is such a wonderful series, I was more than happy to squeeze this book in amongst some of the more serious / dark books I've been reading recently.

From the Blurb:

Somebody in Laos is wooing and wedding country girls - and then killing them on honeymoon and binding their bodies to trees.  The horror of what this monster does to his victims leaves a bad taste in the mouths of Chief Coroner Dr Siri and his morgue team.  Not ones to stand around tutting, they vow immediate revenge.

Opening Lines:

I picked this book up at last year's Crime & Justice Festival and it's been a perfect book to dip into a read a little bit now and then.  Makes you realise that everything old is new again - the Gangland Wars of Melbourne are definitely not the first and couldn't possibly be the last.

From the Blurb:

GANGLAND AUSTRALIA details the exploits of an unforgettable cast of villains, crooks and mobsters who have made up the criminal and gangland scene in Australia.

There is absolutely nothing like a heavy dose of the lurgy to get you tucked up in bed catching up on some reading.  Luckily the latest book from Michael Robotham arrived just in time to join the pile (which I will catch up on mentioning asap).

Oh and there was Easter - I'm sure chocolate doesn't give you a lurgy though!

From the Blurb:

Ray Hegarty, a highly respected former detective, lies dead in his daughter Sienna's bedroom.  She is found covered in his blood.  Everything points to her guilt, but psychologist Joe O'Loughlin isn't convinced.

It's not often you get a review book and you're reading about the author's back story more than the book's synopsis - but Charles Maclean appears to have quite the backstory.

We're lucky enough to be able to give away 3 copies of Dave Franklin's new book - Girls Like Funny Boys (courtesy of Dave himself).

If you'd like to enter the draw - please drop me a line at kc at saki dot com dot au
(link sends e-mail)

I'll use the time honoured method of putting everyone's name on a bit of paper, chucking them up in the air and get the 3 dogs here to pluck a name out each. Odd undoubtedly - but effective.

Do you have one of those favourite authors, that you know is still writing, and you simply cannot resist their books when they arrived.

Louise Welsh is one of those for me and I was really really pleased to see NAMING THE BONES show up.

From the Blurb:

Knee-deep in the mud of an ancient burial ground, a winter storm raging around him, and at least one person intent on his death:  how did Murray Watson end up here?

Opening Lines:

Just finished this really so a full review to come, but this is the second book featuring synaesthesia suffering DCI Mark Lapslie, although if you missed the first book that shouldn't matter - there's a lot of information built into the narrative about Lapslie's background and condition.

From the Blurb:

Originally published in 1948 this is part of a beautifully packaged reprint of the entire Gervase Fen series from Vintage Books.  It's also one of my "read whatever I bloody want" treats.  (Not that reading review books / discussion books etc isn't a privilege, it's just sometimes you just want to read on a whim!)

From the Blurb:

Sometimes I look at Mt TBR and realise that it's more of a hoarders paradise than anything else.  And every year I promise myself that I will go back and read some of the books that are lurking there, that have been lurking there for a long long time.  And sometimes I actually do get around to that.  I really need to work out a way to read more books.  I mean I've given up housework and all those other unnecessary tasks - obviously something else has to go.

From the Blurb:

Okay, I'm lying again.  I'm actually listening to this on my MP3 player.  Which is extremely instructive as it would be fair to say my grasp of Spanish pronunciation isn't good.  My English pronunciation isn't good let's face it.

Well there is absolutely no point in pretending I was a dispassionate observer when WYATT wandered across the threshold earlier this week.  To be honest if the book I was reading hadn't been absolutely tremendous I doubt I'd have been able to restrain myself from putting it aside in favour of this one.  Needless to say from the time that Garry Disher mentioned this book was on the way at last year's Crime & Justice festival I have been keenly anticipating its arrival.  Staying up late last night to get stuck into the book was no hardship at all.  Not being able to sit down and pick it u

I like Dave Franklin's stream of conscious rant novels.  Highly entertaining.

And then he writes GIRLS LIKE FUNNY BOYS and it's not a rant novel. 

In great news from the Sisters in Crime Convenors - Val McDermid is to present the 10th Davitt Awards - 7pm Saturday August 28, Celtic Club Melbourne. Put it in your diary now. Bookings will open in June.

I think I will need a Master Class in not being a blithering idiot in the presence of such an influential and important author!

I'm finding this book quite interesting, Underbelly 3 connections or whatever else aside, mostly because it comes out of New South Wales, and the time of the Wood Royal Commission into Police Corruption etc to which, at the time, I paid scant if any attention whatsoever (who many times do you find yourself reading a book about something from your teenage / young adult years thinking... where was I when this all happened... oh that's right.  Partying.  Hard).

From the Blurb:

THE GIGOLO MURDER is the third Hop-Çiki-Yaya series of books from Turkish author Mehmet Murat Somer.  For anybody who has missed the earlier books this is a series about an unnamed (in the books) computer expert, night-club owning, transvestite.  Not just hilarous, these books give a delicious glimpse into another world.

From the Blurb: