Sorted on book title (not in series order)
Book One in the Claire Hardcastle series DEATH ON D'URVILLE, the second book STRAIGHT AND LEVEL was released in 2017. Operating out of Paraparaumu airport in New Zealand, Hardcastle is a commercial pilot and flying instructor, which gives the author an opportunity to play with a number of...Read more
First in a series of novels based in Fiji, DEATH ON PARADISE ISLAND introduces Inspector Josefa Horseman and Sergeant Susila Singh of the Fiji Police Force, alongside a cast of supporting police characters, set elegantly within the local society and culture.
Readers are...Read more
THE DEATH RAY DEBACLE is fiction built around unexpected facts from the period leading up to World War II. New Zealand inventor Victor Penny ran a bus company by day and at night he worked on producing a death ray. His government sanctioned, amateur scientific pursuits did indeed lead to an...Read more
The fourth novel in the Fiji Islands Mysteries series, DEATH SENTENCE is slower, more measured, and reflective than the earlier entries, which makes sense, given the subject matter.
For those new to the series, it's based around the investigative team of DI Joe Horseman, a...Read more
DEATH OF THE MANTIS is the third book in the Detective David 'Kubu' Bengu series from writing duo Stanley Trollip and Michael Sears, under the pen name of Michael Stanley. (For those that haven't read this series 'Kubu' means hippopotamus which is a commentary on Bengu's size.) I remember...Read more
DEATH AND THE RUNNING PATTERER is the book that won Penguin's last Most Wanted Crime Writing competition, and there's a comment in the acknowledgements that explain a little about the development of the book:
"I owe a debt to Robert Sessions, Penguin Australia's Publishing...Read more
DEATH AND THE SPANISH LADY is the first book from Carolyn Morwood for quite a while, and that, if for no other reason was enough to create some interest in these parts. Set in the period immediately following World War 1, in Melbourne, during the Spanish 'Flu epidemic of 1919, the book...Read more
There's nothing better than a well-executed version of one of the good old staples of crime fiction - a twist on the locked room scenario.
DEATH WORE WHITE is the first in a new series from CWA Dagger Winner Jim Kelly, an author well known for his ongoing Philip Dryden books. ...Read more
Originally published in 1935, DEATH-WATCH is the fifth book in the Dr Gideon Fell series by "golden-age" writer John Dickson Carr.
After marrying an Englishwoman, Dickson moved to London, the setting for many of his novels. Referred to as one of the "Golden Age" writers of...Read more
Published in 1978, THE DECAGON HOUSE MURDERS is credited with launching the shinhonkaku movement, a return to Golden Age style plotting and clue provision for the reader to discover along the way. It's often described as a subgenre of the honkaku style - which can best be described as...Read more
A DECENT RANSOM is a story of a kidnapping gone right (according to the tag on the book). More than that it's a story about a bit of a misfit that somehow ends up okay, despite all the odds being stacked against him.
The storyline is pretty simple to start off with - two young...Read more
Fans of Australian writing (not just crime fiction) if you've not caught up yet with Rowly Sinclair and his wanderings through 1930's Sydney and beyond, where on earth have you been?
A DECLINE IN PROPHETS is the second book in the Rowland Sinclair series from Sulari Gentill and...Read more
As is the way of the world, there have been quite a few crime fiction books recently that delve into the world of cults, the people that get caught in them, and those trying to get them out. DEEP IN THE FOREST is a slightly different twist on that. It's the story of a small town outcast,...Read more
DEEP NIGHT is the second Leah Kolbe book from USA-born, Australian resident author Caroline Petit. Set in 1940's Hong Kong, Leah finally agrees to marry her lover English ex-pat Jonathon. Unfortunately the date of their wedding - Christmas 1941 - finds her exiled to Macau and Jonathon in...Read more
Cliff's back - Lazarus with a quadruple bypass no less. He's resigned to never getting his licence back and his agency is now in the hands of his daughter Megan and her PI boyfriend. He still misses Lily, and he's still driving "a" trusty Falcon, and he's no longer so pressed for money...Read more
THE DEEPER THE DEAD is the third book in the New Zealand based police procedural series feature DI Nyree Bradshaw at the centre of a personal and professional storm. This is definitely one of those sets of books that would be worth reading in order, Bradshaw has a backstory which will allow...Read more
If, like me, you grew up on a diet of Len Deighton, Robert Ludlum and John Le Carre novels, there is a chance you're a bit of a fan of fast paced, military, espionage style novels. DEFENDER OF THE FAITH is a recent entry in the what is rapidly becoming a large pool of choice for Australian...Read more
Flagged as an erotic thriller THE DELECTABLE LADY D'ESTELLE made me think. Unfortunately mostly about how erotica is a tricky undertaking and how, combining it with thriller aspects, you flirt with some very fine lines. I suspect it takes a lot of writing skill to avoid a step over from one...Read more
For someone from a climate as mild as Australia, the cold of a Canadian winter seems somewhat exotic. Salting the roads, ice storms, bears coming out of hibernation when there’s a warm snap, are all vividly depicted. Giles Blunt imparts a strong feeling of being connected to the...Read more
You'd think, on the face of it, that this would be a book that would be right up my dark and twisty alley but for some reason A DENIABLE DEATH took an age to read, and I came away from it with a mild sense of disappointment.
And try as I might, I can't quite put my finger on...Read more
Deserving Death is the seventh novel in the Ella Marconi series from ex-paramedic Australian author, Katherine Howell. This is a series that just keeps getting better and better. It’s not just solid plotting and good characters that make this novel...Read more
Slamming the door on the hellscape of 1980s Belfast, Detective Inspector Sean Duffy hopes that the 1990s are going to be better for him and the people of Northern Ireland.
As a Catholic cop in the mainly Protestant RUC he still has a target on his back, and with a steady...Read more
It's been a bit of a wait for the arrival of what seems to be the first crime fiction novel, DETECTIVE WORK from Australian author John Dale. Well enough worth the wait to wonder why it's taken so long, and to certainly hope that it's the beginning of a new series.
There's...Read more
It's the 1920's and it falls to Lucifer Box to save the civilised world (or at least it seems so to him - and probably him alone!) The threat is coming from many fronts - his own superiors are applying more than a little pressure for Box to retire quietly. Meanwhile, somebody must get to...Read more
When it comes to convoluted reasons for picking up a book I suspect this is not a bad one. I've had DEVIL-DEVIL on the piles here for quite some time, but I suddenly realised it was the perfect book to read as a comparison with a manuscript I was looking at. Love it when you have a win-win...Read more
Devil’s Breath is the first novel in a new crime series built around a neurodivergent professor of botanical toxicology, Eustacia Rose.
Eustacia Rose is currently ‘separated’ from her position at a university, disgraced after an...Read more
The fourth in Dark Passage’s reissue series of crime mysteries by June Wright, The Devil’s Caress , originally published in 1952, is an tense psychological thriller set on the wild southern coast of the Mornington Peninsula, outside Melbourne.Read more
Many fans of Stephen Booth's Fry and Cooper series seem to fall into the pro or anti DS Diane Fry camp pretty firmly. Those in the anti camp may take heart from the fact that she's slightly less present in this book, not making an appearance until later in proceedings. There's also a...Read more
This was a happenstance discovery in the libraries audio listing, which I jumped at the chance of listening to. The narrator, Akira Matsumoto, has a very easy to listen to voice, and to hear the correct pronunciation of the Japanese words an absolute pleasure and an education.
...Read more
THE DEVIL'S GARDEN was a book I picked up because the case it covers - The Claremont Serial Killings - is unfortunately still unsolved, and because I've been reading a little about a number of cases in WA recently. It made me want to find out more about the nature of the investigation into...Read more