The death of Maria Turquand had all the ingredients that would have appealed to the salacious public forty years ago; a beautiful woman, gangsters, drugs and rock stars.
Pursued, bedded and betrayed by her husband the King, Anne Boleyn's story is equally as complex as it is tragic. Anne through both whim and circumstance comes to possess exactly the same ambitions as her bullish husband - to rule absolute, and to provide an heir to the English throne.
Ten years of two families missing their two children of course takes its toll. One couple survives the aftermath of the kidnappings and the other does not. So what will happen now that only one of the two boys is coming home?
Something very clever is being mined from our collective pop culture psyche here, and that is the fascination we have with the last person standing. Plane crashes, shootings, natural disasters etc; it's the sole survivors that fascinate.
... while Gentill is returning to the world of Roland Sinclair, she has shown quite emphatically that she can leave Sinclair behind whenever she wants and go exploring in a wider literary landscape.
Many years have passed since Dr Jekyll suddenly left London society. Lawyer Mr Utterson, seemingly steadfast in his continued assistance to the absent Dr Jekyll, has been busy making plans. Lasting plans, and they include a lady’s affection.
Coming at an eco-thriller from the point of view of the activists, RUBY AND THE BLUE SKY is part thriller, part exploration of "celebrity" culture, and part do good chick lit novel.
The potential here is undoubtedly in plot imagining - the idea behind this is very intriguing, the over-the-top action very reminiscent of gung-ho thrillers, with some good twists and turns.
Known for her Rowland Sinclair historical crime series and her YA Hero trilogy, Sulari Gentill delivers something very different with this new novel. Full review at Newtown Review of Books
In 2005, the Police and Justice Museum in Sydney had an exhibition of police photographs from the early twentieth century. One of these that caught the eye of author Pip Smith was of a man called Harry Crawford, arrested for murder.
When two young people go missing, it's first thought by the police that young love could be the reason why. Amaya and Kamal's respective families both had other plans for their future, and the control wielded over the lives of their children was both archaic and suffocating. Did the two leave their controlling families behind in order to map out their own lives? Or has someone taken them?
Called to attend a crime scene in his own apartment complex, Wolf is faced with a cadaver that is nothing like he or anyone else in his division has ever seen before.
In 2016 the unpublished manuscript of Wimmera won the UK Crime Writers’ Association debut dagger – now it’s published and we can see why. Reviewed at Newtown Review of Books
This is another finely tuned psychological thriller form Robotham, with the psychology of its protagonists front and centre and firmly driving the thriller element.
The unaware, vaguely idiotic central character provides a deep mine of material for any type of slightly tongue in cheek story-telling, and UNFAITHFUL UNTO DEATH uses the premises in setting up Dr Cyril Peabody from the outset of the novel.
Mark Brandi’s Wimmera comes with an impressive pedigree even before it was published. It won a Debut Dagger from the British Crime Writer’s Association while still unpublished.
Agatha has already inserted herself into the life of Meghan Shaughnessy and now it’s just a matter of waiting the pregnancy out. What Agatha desires most will be hers very soon.
Jody mourns the loss of what she felt could have been the most important relationship she has ever had. Her world that had begun to show so much hope with a blossoming new friendship has once again become a dark place. The other flat residents of the converted church had generally kept to themselves and it was only Abe who had made an effort to connect to the shy and lonely Jody.
There's something deliciously intriguing about the idea that a top spy could lose a briefcase, which, rather than chock full of official secrets and classified documents, instead contains three mince pies, two fruit pies, the NZ Listener, a Penthouse magazine, and unfortunately a diary chock full of gossip.
Miranda Rader once was known as Randi the problem teen. Rejected by her family after a brush with the law, Randi’s life seemed to then be heading down all the wrong roads. Fortunately, the time spent in youth detention becomes the making of her.
The Baltimore Boys is a family saga hooked around the mysterious tragedy (every action at some point seems to presage this event). But while it is often engaging on the surface it is not very satisfying.
Your reviewer is new to this (incredibly popular) author so it was a reading requirement to find out (reasonably quickly) why it is that author Mary Kubica is in the ‘must read’ stable of so many crime and mystery readers. It didn’t take long.
Australian author Megan Goldin’s debut does tick off on some of the aspects of the domestic noir sub-genre indicated by the title: strained domestic relationship, creepy controlling male character and an unreliable narrator. And she does so in a way that brings something new and a little chilling to the genre.
The White Road is a hard novel to pigeon hole. Part adventure novel, part slacker comes of age novel and part ghost story. Sarah Lotz plumbs the depths and scales the heights in a book that is not for claustrophobes or those with vertigo.
The Girl Who Was Taken does not have any of the domestic noir genre trappings of the current crop of ‘Girl’ books with which it might be compared (on title alone). Rather, it is an effective, page turning crime thriller with a well handled mystery and an engaging and resourceful protagonist.
Eddie Flynn continues to be one of the great thriller protagonists of recent years. He has the skills of a conman when he needs them, the tactical brain and silk tongue of a trail lawyer and every now and then goes all action hero.
Rachel Seiffert’s A Boy in Winter, explores the Nazi occupation of the Ukraine and the impact on its Jewish population by focusing on one small village.
SOMETHING FOR NOTHING is a perfect example of the lighter, tongue in cheek style of true-blue Aussie Crime Fiction that is increasingly being done particularly well.
Looks like this might be the first novel in an ongoing series which frankly is excellent news. Eva Destruction can only get better with age, wisdom and a litre or ten more of dodgy wine with her mates.
