This listing shows posts that went onto AustCrimeFiction.org in the last 14 days. Sorted into post type groups - Blogs (Updates), Books, Reviews.
In the last few days news of the death of Jean Bedford, after a long illness, has been announced. As a joint founder of Newtown Review of Books, many people will have read her work, or been assisted by her editing skills, over the life of that site, as well as during her time as a much admired author, teacher, lecturer and editor. A wonderful and illuminating tribute has now been posted:
Starting out as I hopefully now mean to go on, a quick mention of my current read - Quintus Huntley: Botany by Royce Leville
When his sole poetry collection is found in the case of a gruesomely murdered violinist, the police think Huntley did it. But he's innocent, and the best way to prove it is to find the killer himself.
After nearly thirty years in prison for the murder of his university friend Leo Bauer, Tyler Green is finally free. Meeting up with the group of friends who were there the night that Leo died, Tyler is looking to reconnect – but he’s also looking for answers. When another friend is found dead that night, his new found freedom is put in jeopardy. Detective Maud O’Connor is called to investigate – but can she discover the truth, or is Tyler Green never going to be free?
A town engulfed in flames.
The dying coastal town of Broughlet is being torn apart by wildfires, and the locals suspect arson.
A cult devoted to fire.
The sinister People's Cleansing Light is suspected of setting the blazes.
A missing child.
On the sands of Shellybanks, where tides can quickly turn treacherous, journalist Kate Delaney once nearly drowned. Years later, reeling from a violent crime that has upended her life in Melbourne, she returns to Dublin to comfort her beloved aunt Dolores—only to discover Dolores has her own buried trauma.
As a teenager, Dolores was drawn into a disturbing religious movement that stole her youth, her freedom, and so much more. With Kate's help, she is determined to confront the powerful network that made her endure years of silence and shame.
Blood is thicker than water. But too much leaves a trail . . .
Russell and Evan Powder are cops.
The brothers haven’t spoken for five years, since a violent confrontation tore their family apart.
Now they are both assigned to the murder of a young journalist, Chloe Lutz, in the small town of Redbelly Crossing (population 205).
Q is out of MI6 . . .
. . . and in over his head
Attending your best friend’s wedding should be a piece of (wedding) cake, but not for bestselling mystery author Eleanor Dash. Because murder seems to follow her every time she goes on holiday – and is her uninvited plus-one to this special occasion . . .
Eleanor’s best friend, Emma, is starring in a movie alongside her co-star and fiancé, Fred. As filming wraps, they invite the whole cast and crew to their wedding at nearby Catalina Island.
Why did she do it? After a day of simmering tension, Júlía snaps and abandons her husband Gíó on an uninhabited island in a freezing fjord in the depths of the Icelandic winter.
When she returns the next morning, he is nowhere to be found. The police launch a manhunt, but soon their suspicion falls on Júlía. She spins them a story to hide her involvement, but she can feel the net closing in.
On the eve of their wedding, Jackson discovers something he can’t forgive about his fiancee Sara. As he tries to make himself disappear so that he won’t be found by her and her violent family, he connects with international art dealer Sebastian Lee who offers him an escape route – but at what cost?
Gripping and unputdownable, Killing for Sport is a high-octane thriller set in the world of international organised crime, from one of Australia’s best-loved media personalities.
You’d never guess Lottie Jones had skeletons in her closet.
She’s lived in town for decades now. She’s getting older. She lives for the simple pleasures of weekly bingo games at church, and gossiping with her friends about their children’s love lives.
But when investigative journalist Plum Dixon shows up on her doorstep asking questions about Lottie’s past, and specifically about her connection to numerous unsolved murders, well, Lottie just can’t have that.
Minoru Aose is an architect whose greatest achievement is to have designed the Yoshino house, a prizewinning and much discussed private residence built in the shadow of Mount Asama. Aose has never been able to replicate this triumph and his career seems to have hit a barrier, while his marriage has failed. He is shocked to learn that the Yoshino House is empty apart from a single chair, stood facing the north light of nearby Mount Asama.
When Jonathon Fairfax accidentally helps a murderer bump off Sarah Morecambe, the secretary of a senior politician, he sets off a chain of events that astonishes him. Jonathon is wrong-footed by even the most everyday things, so he's particularly startled to find himself caught up in a conspiracy that goes right to the heart of government.
When a dilapidated distillery comes up for sale in rural Kintyre, Eilidh and her wife Morag jump at the chance. But their ambition to run the first women-owned whisky distillery in Scotland seems to be scuppered when a grisly, decades-old secret is revealed: two dead bodies have been stuffed into barrels, perfectly preserved in single malt.
In the middle of the family New Year's gathering at his home, Grandfather Fuchigami is murdered. But not for the last time.
For his grandson, Hisataro, has fallen into a mysterious time-loop, in which he must relive the same day again and again.
Every morning after his grandfather's death, Hisataro wakes up with a chance to find the culprit and prevent the murder. But day after day he fails, despite stumbling across clues aplenty in the shape of secret plots, illicit love affairs and jealous rivalries.
One winter evening bestselling crime author, Elín S. Jónsdóttir goes missing.
There are no clues to her disappearance and it is up to young detective, Helgi, to crack the case before it's leaked to the press.
As he interviews the people closest to her – a publisher, an accountant, a retired judge – he realises that Elín’s life wasn’t what it seemed. In fact, her past is even stranger than her stories.
In 2003 Kathleen Folbigg was convicted of killing her four babies. Her trial relied on her husband’s accusations and diary entries expressing her guilt over her children’s deaths. She was sentenced to forty years in prison.
In Inside Out Kathleen takes us back to her traumatic childhood, her difficult marriage, her dream of nurturing a family, and the profound souring of that dream into a nightmare.
This place is paradise. A gleaming, golden paradise, and mark my words, we intend to keep it that way, by any means possible. You can bet on it.
Detective Lana Cohen thought she had found a slice of peace on the sun-drenched Gold Coast, but her respite is shattered when a severed hand is found on a local beach.
Climate change. Water shortages. Crowded cities. Economic inequality. Limited opportunity. Unemployment. Politicians who only care about the 1%. People are angry and the world is on edge. Millions of people are ready to fight for the change they want. All they need is a leader.
The remote Clock House is filled with priceless timepieces from across the world. It is also rumoured to be haunted by the spirit of a dead girl. A team of ghosthunters visit the mansion to investigate, but their stay has barely begun when one of them is gruesomely murdered, and the survivors realize that they are trapped inside the house with a killer...
Morally flexible best mates and private investigators Alice and Teddy pride themselves on fixing every kind of mess imaginable, no questions asked. So, when they're tasked with locating the recently-stolen ashes of long-dead celebrity tennis player Ashley “Perry” Perrineau, it should be a routine job.
Journalist James Brandt lives in a brittle truce with his partner Dylan and his family, never talking about the homophobic attacks he exposed in his rural hometown, including the brutal death of a beloved cousin twenty years ago.
But this illusion of peace is ripped apart by the start of the state's historical gay-hate crime inquiry, and the reappearance of the Joneses, who waltz back into Kippen professing to be queer allies. Yet when one of that notorious dynasty is found dead at a local water tower, it is James who stands accused.
Mitchell is a brilliant biologist, committed to the environment and the growing global antinatalist movement. For one month each year he lives with his colleague Frances in a utopia of radical equality and scientific dedication in Antarctica. They are concluding the Anarctos Project: a seed vault in an isolated, secret location. It is a biodiversity insurance policy against humanity’s devastating effects on the rapidly warming planet.
Helen Capel is hired as a live-in lady-help to the Warren family in the countryside. She enjoys the eccentric household and her duties, but her peaceful and simple life is soon disturbed by a series of mysterious murders in the isolated community.
A highly charged crime-thriller - the first in an electrifying new series - by multi-award-winning prince of the twist, J.P. Pomare.
PI Vince Reid is visiting an old friend when he's offered a case he can't refuse: Why did a respected local woman open fire at a political rally, killing a promising young university graduate? It's easy money, he's told. A sure thing.
In an encounter straight out of fiction, Katie might have met Mr Right on the long-haul flight from Melbourne to New York. Richard Sinclair is charming, handsome, wealthy, cultured—and married. In an open marriage, according to him. When he invites her to join him in his lush lakeside villa in Italy as his son’s au pair, it might just be the opportunity for a reset that Katie has been longing for.
Jodie always dreamed of being a housewife. And after a whirlwind romance, she marries renowned psychologist Dr. Roy Davies and moves into his perfect Beverly Hills home. But the fairy tale fades fast. Roy is distant, his friends view her as a gold-digger, and the house still reveres his late wife, Deborah, whose presence still looms over everyone and everything.
People say to me, if you could do it all again, knowing what you know now, would you change anything? I'm like, f*** no. If I'd been clean and sober, I wouldn't be Ozzy. If I'd done normal, sensible things, I wouldn't be Ozzy.
Look, if it ends tomorrow, I can't complain. I've been all around the world. Seen a lot of things. I've done good... and I've done bad. But right now, I'm not ready to go anywhere.
At the age of sixty-nine, Ozzy Osbourne was on a triumphant farewell tour, playing to sold-out arenas and rave reviews all around the world.
I was having a bit of a chat with a fellow lover of crime fiction (hi Gavin) on BlueSky who copied me in on an instagram post that outed the author of this novel as Campbell Jeffreys, a writer with a diverse background in literature, media and film, and the author of (amongst other things) a thriller entitled BALACLAVA which is now on the TO BE READ teetering piles. Because, if at any point you think that QUINTUS HUNTLEY: BOTANY (written under the author name of Royce Leville) sounds unlikely, park the concerns, grab yourself a copy and get stuck in.
Best wishes to all for the upcoming festive season however you celebrate (or don't). This year our day will be low key as usual. Board games and no fuss food with friends, all leading up to a chocolate fountain. Which is our sort of Christmas Tree!