AustCrimeFiction - All Blogs

Thank you very very much to Perry from Matilda(link is external) who was at Friday night's Ned Kelly awards and kindly let me know the winners:

Non-Fiction 
THE TALL MAN by Chloe Hooper

First Fiction 
GHOSTLINES by Nick Gadd

This book won the Pengin Most Wanted Competition recently - it's got a most unusual central protagonist and is set in Colonial 1880's Sydney.

From the Blurb:

One of the convict colony's soldiers has been murdered and Governor Ralph Darling is not pleased.

All you aspiring female writers out there, don't forget that entries for the 2009 Scarlett Stiletto's presented by the Sisters in Crime finishes on Monday 31st August.

For a wonderful article on the history of the Stiletto Awards read Meg Vann's interview with Carmel Shute here:

http://blog.awmonline.com.au/2009/08/18/the-first-cut/(link is external)

To be brutally honest, this is one of those books that I've known I should have read, and yet I've been very very leery of doing so.  The subject matter is uncomfortable, the events confronting.

It's not good enough to shy away because the truth is uncomfortable.

From the Blurb:

I recently had to spend a bit of fill in time waiting for a car service to be completed, so I spent some time in the library.  And started reading this book.  It seemed churlish not to borrow it, but I've not had time to finish it since.  So now I am.

From the Blurb:

Roy Angel is not a man for paperwork.  He's never completed a risk assessment form in his life.  NOw he's wishing he had - his life could depend on it ...

Opening Lines:

At a fantastic night out and ceremony last night the Sisters in Crime 2009 Davitt Award winners were announced, wined, dined, feted and photographed. 

The nights festivities were highlighted by a chat between Sue Turnbull and Justice Elizabeth King of the Supreme Court of Victoria, some fabulous food and 130+ Sisters in Crime and Brothers in Law turning out on a cold Melbourne night to celebrate some absolutely fantastic authors and books.

But without further ado - the winners of the categories in the order they were announced:

TRUE CRIME

Katherine has just let me know that her third book - Cold Justice, has been pushed back to a new release date of February 2010.  Darn - that makes the wait just that little bit longer for those of us who are really hanging out for the next instalment from this great Australian author.

Stil - February, summer, hot, no excuse not to sit quietly and read a good book!

At the close of a long day, Inspector Stephen Villani stands in the bathroom of a luxury apartment high above the city. In the glass bath, a young woman lies dead, a panic button within reach.

So begins the sequel to Peter Temple's bestselling masterpiece, The Broken Shore, winner of the Gold Dagger for Best Crime Award.

A little break from my Davitt catchup whilst I attend to a group read on Murder and Mayhem!

From the Blurb:

Two seven-year-old boys have been abducted from the streets of Glasgow.  Both had already endured years of neglect and betrayal - but for Detective Inspector Colin Anderson the case is especially disturbing, because the boys look so much like his own son Peter...

Opening Lines:

I haven't read a Phryne Fisher book in simply ages, so I've picked this one up in my pursuit of reading all nominees for next Friday's Davitt Awards.

From the Blurb:

Melbourne, 1929.  The year starts off for glamorous private investigator Phryne Fisher with a rather trying heatwave and more mysteries than you could prod a parasol at.

Opening LInes:

It had been such an agreeable day until then.

http://www.nedkellyawards.com/2009.html(link is external)

Best first fiction
Ghostlines, Nick Gadd *
Crooked, Camilla Nelson *
The Build Up, Phillip Gwynee *

Best Fiction
Bright Air Barry Maitland *
Deep Water Peter Corris *
Smoke & Mirrors Kel Robertson *

I know, I know, I'm supposed to be catching up on Davitt Award nominee books (I've got a few left to go), but I got distracted.  It happens.

From the Blurb:

It's market day in St Denis, a small town in the Perigord region of south-west France.  The locals are on the alert because inspectors are about to make a 'surprise visit', hoping to enforce the unpopular and bureaucratic EU hygiene rules.  But for Captain Bruno Courreges, St Denis' Chief of Police, this particular market day turns into something far more serious.

Caroline Petit's second Leah Kolbe book is set in Hong Kong and Macau at the time of the Sino-Japanese war and, to be perfectly frank, it's a tremendous book - I'm nearly finished after picking it up yesterday - but more asap.

From the Blurb:

It's always very pleasing to see a new local author popup on the shelves of the local bookshops, and Michael Duffy will be a name known already to many newspaper readers and listeners to Radio National.  It was particularly pleasing to find a previously unknown (to me at least) connection to The Saints'.  To hear The Tower's theme, The Saints' recording of Sydney crime song 'Water and Wine', go to http://www.cityofsharks.com(link is external)

From the Blurb:

Purchase a copy of the new Linwood Barclay novel, Fear the Worst(link is external), keep your receipt and enter the competition here before the 31 August 2009 and you could win a collection of Orion crime titles of your choice (to the value of $1000 AUD).

For more - have a look on Hachette's site:

http://www.hha.com.au/promotions/feartheworst/index.php

After NATURAL HISTORY, I've really been looking forward to the next novel from Neil Cross - and BURIAL arrived today.

From the Blurb:

Nathan has never been able to forget the worst night of his life:  the party that led to the sudden, shocking disappearance of a young woman.

Opening LInes:

The doorbell rang.

Nathan had a feeling - but he dismissed it, muted the TV and went to the door.

There's a new Wyatt on the way - so I'm catching up on the couple that I've been waiting to read for a while - Kickback being the first of them.

From the Blurb:

Wyatt robs banks, and lifts payrolls.  Most men like him are dead or in gaol.  But Wyatt stamps a cold, pitiless style on his heists - and makes sure that he never gets caught.

Opening Lines:

Stuart Black's first crime novel - SHALLOW WATER - is due out on the 24th of September, but I've been lucky enough to receive an advanced readers copy, which I've started.  More on the release date, when I'll publish a proper review.

From the Blurb:

A lifeless body by the side of the road in Notting Hill ...  A gorgeous but high maintenance wife self destructing because she's been denied access to the family fortune ... Another death - this time in the shallows of the stunning Great Barrier Reef ...

Opening LInes:

Starting this book for a buddy read on Murder & Mayhem(link is external) later today.  It's blurbed as being witty and melancholy by turns, if the plot of this eccentric tale of greed and witchcraft doesn't have your mouth watering, the loving descriptions of French good will.

Personally I'm fighting off a very strong urge to get a pet Truffle hunting pig just like Roseline.

From the Blurb:

The 8th Brodie Farrell Mystery, Closer Still is another book in Jo Bannister's impressive list of 30 or so books.

From the Blurb:

Detective Superintendent Jack Deacon doesn't take kindly to personal threats.  So when a local gangster starts taking an interest in his partner Brodie Farrell and their infant son, Deacon is prepared to do whatever it takes to protect them.

Opening Lines:

It was later than he thought.  He'd been in the back room of The Rose for hours, conducting business.

This is the third book from Alex Palmer - her second book The Tattooed Man won the Canberra Critics Circle Award, the first book Blood Redemption won the Ned Kelly Award for Best First Crime Novel, the Canberra Critics Circle Award for Literature and the Sisters in Crime Davitt Award.

From the Blurb:

Two years have passed since top cop Paul Harrigan walked away from the New South Wales Police Force to be his ownman.  Since then his life has been a gift, and his home with his partner Agent Grace Riordan and their daughter a sanctuary.

One of the interesting sessions at the 2009 Crime & Justice Festival was Lucy Sussex presenting a talk on Mary Fortune.  Mary Fortune (c 1833-1909) was a pioneer Australian crime fiction author, and for too long she's been little known / little discussed.

Another one started and finished over the weekend (you have to love Festivals where finding a seat in the sun, out of the wind and reading is an experience to be shared with total strangers), The Water's Edge is the latest Karin Fossum book featuring Inspector Sejer (who is probably as close to a current day Martin Beck as you're ever going to find).

From the Blurb:

You really have to watch that blurb thing.  When I saw this book, first thing on Saturday morning in the bookshop at the Crime & Justice Festival(link is external) I have got to admit that the blurb didn't do it for me "I couldn't put it down - Great!"  Mick Gatto.  I mean, what on earth does Mick Gatto normally read - would our tastes even vaguely coincide? 

Okay, so it's gone past fibbing and now I'm lying.  I needed a book to fill in the train trip into Melbourne for this past weekend's Crime & Justice festival (which was fabulous incidentally).  So I took Meaner than Fiction with me and it was just perfect, and I finished it that night in the hotel.  Contains a series of stories about Failed Justice from authors Lindy Cameron, PD Martin, Kerry Greenwood, Shelley Robertson, Susan Metcalfe, Leigh Redhead, Kathryn Deans, Robin Bowles, Liz Filleul and Lucy Sussex.

From the Blurb:

Linwood Barclay is an author who is coming to Crime & Justice Festival(link is external) in Melbourne this weekend, so I was happy to sit down yesterday and read this book.

From the Blurb:

Shortlisted for the Glen Dimplex New Writer's Award in 2008, you can find out more about The Semantics of Murder at http://www.thesemanticsofmurder.com(link is external)

From the Blurb:

Jay Hamilton lives in a fashionable area of London, listening to the problems of the wealthy clients who frequent his psychoanalysis practice.

Opening Lines:

Flagged as the "Extraordinary new Gabriel Allon Thriller" MOSCOW RULES is the first of this series I've read so far.

From the Blurb:

The violent death of a journalist leads agent turned art-restorer, Gabriel Allon, to Russia.  Here he finds that in terms of spycraft, the stakes are the highest they've ever been.  He's playing by Moscow rules now.

Opening Lines:

Okay, I'm fibbing again as I've been reading this for a while.  It's a collection of short stories, edited by Ken Gelder and Rachael Weaver, written by a series of colonial Australian authors.  The collection starts with John Lang's - Barrington, 1859 and ends with Allen Micahaelis in 1933 with The Gangster.  More in a full review to come.

I will confess right now, I love Ken Bruen when he's writing that sparse, cut down, terse, lyrical, moving, disturbing fantastic prose that he does.  ONCE WERE COPS is one of those books - and I couldn't wait to read it.

From the Blurb:

Michael O'Shea is a member of Ireland's police force, known as the Guards.  He's also a sociopath who walks a knife-edge between sanity and all-out mayhem.

Opening Lines:

"Where Do I Begin?"

Wasn't that like a song?

And a pretty fucking bad one?

Like my story.

Okay, I'm fibbing a little as I read this one a few days ago, but I've not had time to post anything about it here.  I'm having a bit of an Irish binge for a few days, but Adrian McKinty's a relatively new author for me - having only read one other of his books (although I've got them all).  This is one of those books that, to be perfectly frank, I had no idea what was going on, and didn't care a bit.  Mad, bad and beautifully evocative.

From the Blurb:

It's impossible to read a book like this and not think long and hard about the context - the abuse of the powerless, frequently children, by the supposedly powerful.  SALVATION is a great title for this book, but more on that in an upcoming full review. 

From the Blurb:

In the early 1950s, Rod Braybon's father died, leaving his mother with eight children she couldn't care for.  As a ward of the state, Rod was passed from institution to institution until he finally ended up at the notorious Bayswater Boys' Home run by the Salvation Army.

And now for something completely different:

http://www.youtube.com/AusBookVideoAwards(link is external)

The Book Video Awards is an annual book trailer competition. The trailers are 90 seconds long and are based on three new Random House Australia books, THE TRUE STORY OF BUTTERFISH by Nick Earls, BLACK ICE by Leah Giarratano and STATE OF EMERGENCY by Sam Fisher.

Well, the programme for this festival was released this morning, so we've just faxed off our bookings (I'm lucky enough to be going for the 2 days of the weekend, Adam will come down and join me on the Sunday).

The programme's online at http://www.crimeandjusticefestival.com/(link is external)

So we've booked for:

Tales from the Dark Side - Rochelle Jackson, Colin McLaren and Susanna Lobez with Shirley Hardy-Rix

First book from local first time crime fiction author, Rick Dunlop Cases:  The Maclay Murder and other Mysteries arrived for review recently.

From the Blurb:

Ex DI RIck Dunlop is forced to write his memoir for his guidance counsellor after a certain case for the Victorian Police finds him "mentally unfit for active duty" and turns him into a social outcast.  Ten months on, he has managed to find gainful employment with Jeff, another cast-off from the ranks of the esteemed men in blue, and now proprietor of Fitzroy Field Investigations.

There was a great summary article from Stephen Knight in last weekend's Age:

http://www.theage.com.au/news/entertainment/books/our-dark-materials/2009/06/18/1244918135592.html

The article could serve as a great checklist for current fans to check that they have read through as much of the local offering as possible, or as a starting out list for new readers.

The third book from clinical psychologist turned crime fiction author, Leah Giarratano, BLACK ICE is due out on 1st July - so I'll hold my full review until then.

From the Blurb:

Beautiful people can do terrible things...

A mother out of gaol, hell-bent on vengeance, desperate to be reunited with her son.

An ambitious cop trying to bust a Sydney drug cartel.

A glamorous society couple living the high life - he's a successful lawyer, she's a model. He's also feeding her growing cocaine and ice habit.

Jim Kelly's a great author from the UK - I've enjoyed earlier books of his very much - so Death Wore White as a discussion book on 4MA - well had to get a copy of it.

From the Blurb:

At 5.15pm Harvey Ellis was trapped, stranded in a line of eight cars by a blizzard on a Norfolk coast road.

At 8.15pm Harvey Ellis was dead, viciously stabbed at the wheel of his truck.

And his killer has achieved the impossible:  striking without being seen, and without leaving a single footprint in the snow.

Opening Lines:

I've really enjoyed Bill's earlier books, so it was rather nice to find that with him living not so far away from where we've now moved to, his new books are now much easier to track down.

From the Blurb:

Compulsively Murdering Mao tracks the life of Phillip Coussens from his childhood in a small country town to his life as an investigative journalist and press secretary to the special Minister of State and China Trade, and his seduction by a CIA operative to deliver the fatal move on Chairman Mao.

Opening Lines:

Have you got any authors whose books you regard as your "treat"?  Stuart MacBride is definitely one of those for me.  Okay so there's a lot of them, but it's not often that a new MacBride novel can sit around here before I pick it up.  So it was with Blind Eye.  I felt like treating myself.  I had 3 treat books to choose from - Blind Eye won :)

Mind you, these aren't cosy, sweetness and light books.   Black humour, violent deaths, gory outcomes, love 'em.

From the Blurb:

This year is the year I'm going to keep up with new books by local authors..

Well technically it's another pipedream, but a woman's allowed to have this little delusions.  Besides a hobby is a hobby and there's nothing in the rule book that says it can't be a fantasy.

From the Blurb:

There's a lot of books that I should be reading, and there's a lot that I want to be reading - but I was also in the mood for a good police procedural so this one sort of got plucked from the piles - totally unexpectedly (okay well the idea that I plan what I'm going to read next is tenuous at best).

From the Blurb:

Two murdered teenagers. Who will get to the killer first?  The police, or the crimelord who owes a debt to the dead girl's father?

Opening Lines:

R.M. Davey, a twenty-five year old Bendigo local, has recently published his first book, ‘Rick Dunlop Cases: The Maclay Murder and Other Mysteries’.

I've been very much looking forward to this book, having really enjoyed A CARRION DEATH which was the first book from South African duo Michael Sears and Stanley Trollip.

From the Blurb:

I can't begin to describe the happy feeling that arose from finding this book in the pile that the postwoman delivered yesterday.  Even happier was the co-incidence that I just finished my last book, so I could pick it up straight away.  Started last night, this looks to be shaping up to be Barry Maitland's Brock and Kolla at their best.

From the blurb:

Fans of Australian Crime Fiction and, in particular, Arthur Upfield have got a bit of a treat coming up on ABC1 on the 14th June.  3 Acts of Murder will be screening, telling one of those truth is often stranger than fiction stories about Arthur Upfield.

I noticed today that nominations for the 2009 Ned Kelly's have closed (http://www.nedkellyawards.com/(link is external)) and that the short list will be announced when they can.

One day I'll catch up with the books I'm supposed to be reading.  Okay, so it's a fools dream, but one can only hope.  Splinter's been on the list of books that I should be reading fora while, and I'm making a serious effort to do some catching up over the next couple of months as we head into winter (fingers, toes and everything crossed for some of that rain in NSW and QLD to head out here to Western Victoria!)

From the Blurb

I've been meaning to pick this book up for quite a while, and was feeling like a slight break from local authors - so Bleeding Heart Square was just the ticket.

From the Blurb:

Partly based on a celebrated real-life Victorian murder case, this mysterious gothic novel will have readers gripped from the very first page.

Opening Lines:

I started reading this one on the weekend - it's the first crime fiction book from John A Flanagan - who is the author the the bestselling Ranger's Apprentice series. 

I've never read the Ranger's Apprentice series, but boy I'm glad I'm reading this book. Despite it being yet another barking mad serial killer (which teeters on the edge of being a serious bore), STORM PEAK has a bit of a twist in the tale which is working very well.

From the blurb:

I'm running very behind with reviews at the moment, but on the upside getting some great books read (I will catch up soon I promise Andrea :) ), but in the meantime, A Decent Ransom is the first adult novel from Australian author Ivana Hruba.

From the Blurb:

When a woman is kidnapped and her husband refuses to pay the ransom, she plans her revenge with the help of her kidnappers in this clever tale of redemption.

Opening Lines:

I'm nothing if not quick on the uptake these days, and it's finally dawned on me that if I spend less time waffling on in blog posts, I can actually get some reading done!  Who would have bloody thought it....

Anyway, Dining with Devils is the latest book from Canadian author Gordon Aalborg who has spent a lot of time in Tasmania.  I'm reading this in PDF format so I'm not going to plow through it as quickly as I'd like as there's just no comfortable way to lie in bed with a laptop - but still, I'm a reasonable way in so far and so far it's feeling very authentic.

I started reading this book a few weeks ago, home alone whilst himself was in the US at a conference.

Big Mistake.

It was way too creepy to be reading at home alone.  It really is a very chilling book - not just because of the subject matter, but the manner in which the book is told is very disquieting.

From the blurb:

I do love this series - hefty dose of woo woo notwithstanding.  Possibly because the woo woo components just seem so culturally appropriate, but it could also be that Dr Siri is so wonderfully eccentric and fabulous you could forgive him a lot of things.  The spiritual elements are, however, ramped up a lot in this book and it could be that this series would be best read in order, as the characters develop, and the relationship of Dr Siri and the spiritual world evolves.

From the Blurb: