Sorted on book title (not in series order)
There are books stacked up in the corners of this house that I look at fondly and think I must read that.. I've got to read that... and next thing you know it's a few years down the track and I'm still mumbling must to myself. DRY DOCK is one of those books that wants me to take myself...Read more
It was rather pleasing to see DUBLIN DEAD, mostly because O'Donovan's first book, The Priest, actually managed to get me to rethink my "over serial killer" books stance. So no pressure on this one... at all.
There is some reference back to The Priest in DUBLIN DEAD, which is...Read more
The Dublin Trilogy by Caimh McDonnell is now made up of 9 entries, two of which are novellas. Bear with me:
In Order of Publication:
A Man with One of Those Faces
The Day That Never Comes
Angels in the Moonlight
Last Orders
...Read more
I'm really not sure how Peter Corris, or Cliff Hardy manage to keep up the pace, but I'm very very relieved they do, as the New Year tradition of a new Cliff Hardy book, a couch and the Test Cricket on the radio has become rather important over the last few years.
One of the...Read more
It's not uncommon for crime fiction from any location to address societal issues up front, and DUST by journalist / author Michael Brissenden is doing exactly that - tackling drought, and the deprivation in rural communities that goes alongside that, as well as the rise of the Sovereign...Read more
I think I read somewhere that DUSTY DEXTER PI - HER FIRST CASE started life as a newspaper serial, which if that is the case, makes it the second of this sort of book I've read coming out of Queensland this year. Although this isn't a series of short stories, it's the story of an entire...Read more
THE DYING BREED is the third book in the Irish PI Ed Loy series from Declan Hughes, Ed being an Irishman who went home after living in the US for many years. A broken marriage and the tragic death of his young daughter are events that shaped him there, but his childhood in Ireland shaped...Read more
DYING GRASS MOON is the 2nd book in the Hennessey Reed Mystery Series, following on from ONE FOR ANOTHER. Set in the early 1800's in Idaho in the USA, Hennessy Reed is a bordello madam, amateur sleuth, hidden mother, astounding woman and an absolute force to be reckoned with.
...Read more
DYING LIGHT is the follow-up book to the much talked about and acclaimed COLD GRANITE and it maintains the high standard that the first book in the series reached.
It is summer in Aberdeen, the sun is shining and it is not raining anywhere near as much as it does in winter....Read more
DS Stevie Hooper, recently seconded to the Serious Crime Squad in Perth, is working with her old friend DI Monty McGuire. When the naked, hairless body of a young woman is found, poised carefully outside a Bank in the main part of the city, sprayed totally with bronze paint there not only...Read more
When Finn Bell entered his first two novels in the Ngaio Marsh Awards (PANCAKE MONEY and DEAD LEMONS - which won the 2017 Best First Novel), he cemented himself pretty firmly in favourite author stakes. Mostly because there was something very different about both of those novels, but both...Read more
A fifteen-year-old tearaway is obviously heading for a whole lot of trouble, but when he seemingly commits suicide in a youth detention centre after nearly bludgeoning an elderly couple to death, there just seems to be something more to this than originally meets the eye.
When...Read more
ECHO LAKE is the debut thriller from screenwriter, producer and author Joan Sauers. Set in the sleepy, scenic vista of the Southern Highlands of New South Wales, Rose McHugh has just moved to the area, as a result of a tumultuous divorce. This is an area she loved to visit when younger, and...Read more
A vigilante with a message. The outsider detective. A cold case they both want solved.
Rachael Schlank is a straight-talking detective who’s always felt like a fish out of water, bouncing between departments over the years. Now she’s finally found a home in Victoria Police's Cold...Read more
Opening up with a duck hunting scene that will stay with readers for a while, THE ECHO OF OTHERS is a debut novel set in my part of the world - Central and parts of Western Victoria. There's a heap of potential here - from a good solid, cleverly structured plot; some excellent characters -...Read more
This book is just classic Swedish / Scandinavian crime fiction. Slow, involved, intricate, revealing and complex, ECHOES FROM THE DEAD concentrates very much on Julia, and her father, and their slow and careful repairing of a relationship which was torn apart at the time that Julia's son...Read more
Candice Fox is on the verge of scoring a rare hat-trick at this year’s Ned Kelly awards with the release of the third book in her Frank Bennett and Eden Archer series. In 2014, Candice Fox’s Hades blasted onto the Australian crime-fiction scene and won the Ned...Read more
EDEN PRIME is the second Jonas Blackthorne Action thriller. In the first book, author Andy L Semple gave the politicians something to think about. In this outing he's decided to up the pressure just a tad, and give everybody something to think about.
I think it would be fair...Read more
Right from the commencement of HADES, the first Archer / Bennett book by Candice Fox, it was obvious that this was a series to be watched. Dark, confrontational, emotional and compelling, that book started a journey into the consequences of human damage, and EDEN picks that up, twists it...Read more
Sandra Mahoney and her partner Ivan are security consultants, so what she is doing poking around the death by natural causes of a well known politician seems to confuse Sandra as much as everybody else. In EDEN, the third Sandra Mahoney series book by Dorothy Johnston, Sandra is home alone...Read more
Mark Brandi has always been a writer of great male characters, from Ben and Fab in his standout debut WIMMERA, to Jimmy in SOUTHERN AURORA, Anton and Steve in THE RIP and...Read more
It doesn't seem to matter how adamant I am about the subject matter that I just don't like, there just always seems to be "that book" that comes along and shoots all my prejudices out of the water. THE EDGE OF MADNESS is about cyber-war. The threat of annihilation of the free world at the...Read more
There's nothing new about a central police character as damaged as the victims they are fighting for, and in many ways DI Helen Grace is one straight out of the mould. She's driven, single-minded, single and a devoted cop and good and supportive boss. She's not a woman who is just suffering...Read more
It really shouldn't work. Even in something as dark and noir styled as EIGHTBALL BOOGIE, there should be limits. Sure, hero's can be wise-cracking, dry, lone wolf investigators, or "Researchers". They can obviously have fraught personal lives, and goodness knows Rigby's personal life - what...Read more
Eliza Dacey was murdered in cold blood.
Four years later, the world watched it unfold again on screen.
Producer Jack Quick knows how to frame a story. So says Curtis Wade, the subject of Jack’s new true crime docuseries, convicted of a young woman’s murder four years...Read more
Benjamin Stevenson's first book featuring documentary maker Jack Quick was a revelation, particularly when considered again, in hindsight, from the viewpoint of the second novel in the series. Quoting from my own review of GREENLIGHT at the time:
"There's a
...Read more
I'll be perfectly honest - I circled El Dorado in the Readings tent at the Melbourne Writers festival for days. It's a contemporary Australian crime fiction thriller. It was long-listed for the 2007 Ned's and I'd promised myself to read the entire list of nominees this year. So why was I...Read more
“Barely a week later, the doorbell rang, loud and long. In Maud’s world it felt as if her visitor had only just left.”
When Swedish crime writer Helene Turston was asked to write a short story for a Christmas anthology she created the character of Maud, an 88 year lady who has...Read more
The book of the TV show, ELEMENTARY: THE GHOST LINE is based around the characters of Sherlock Holmes and his sidekick Joan Watson. Set in New York, and having never seen the show, it seems that likely that the TV show is a reworking of the recent English reboot of Sherlock. Which probably...Read more