AustCrimeFiction.org

This update is bought to you mostly by the 2025 Ngaio Marsh Awards as the reading list is with the longlisting reviewers now. 

The list (which might still have some changes) is live on AustCrime as the 2025 Ngaio Marsh Reading List.  There are a number of people on the initial consideration panel, so we don't have to read absolutely everything on the list, but I do try to read as many of them as I can. Which should perhaps go some way to explaining why the reviewing piles are behind.

Every year the awards flush some very unexpected gems - the shortlist from the last couple of years are perfect examples of how diverse:

2024 Winners

2023 Winners

It's been a privilege to read so many great books.

Needless to say, a lot of the books added to the site recently are from this year. There's also been some great upcoming books arriving as well. These include:

The Body Next Door, Zane Lovitt and a catch up of Keigo Higashino's books (which I've been wanting to read for ages). 

In general the last fortnight of activity is an ongoing roll of new posts. Later week there should be a couple of new reviews of some of the NZ entries going live - Home Truths and Return to Blood (provided the bushfire storms keep themselves to a minimum). 

 

Firstly apologies. The last newsletter was back in March, and since then things have been ... well chaotic. So there's some news to be caught up with.

Firstly some releases you might want to keep an eye out for (click on the cover images for the book details):

RELEASE DATE:  29/5/2025: Aside from this being a really interesting cover design, a locked room mystery on a cruise ship set in 1925.

 

RELEASE DATE:  1/6/2025:  Melaleuca by Angie Faye Martin. I'm hearing all sorts of good things about it. It's on the stack for reading and has been shunted a long way up the list.

RELEASE DATE: 25/6/2025: Mark Brandi's next novel, set this time in Melbourne, is one I'm reading at the moment and it's as good as you'd expect from this author.

RELEASE DATE: 29/7/2026: High Rise is the next thriller by Gabriel Bergmoser. I haven't got this one yet so can't make any comment except it's a thriller, it's by Gabriel Bergmoser so I'm expecting a wild ride.

 

RELEASE DATE: 29/7/2026: The quote at the start of the blurb of this had me laughing a lot - sounds exactly like something you'd hear around here. (Don't get me started on the latest rally I attended - there are people in this world that have lost their sodding minds...)

 

RELEASE DATE: 26/8/2025: From NZ this time, Zoe Rankin's debut comes with some very big wraps. 

RELEASE DATE: 26/8/2025: The latest from Michael Brissenden feels a bit too prescient given the drought at the moment!

RELEASE DATE: 2/9/2025: Debut which sounds very intriguing. 

 

RELEASE DATE: 30/9/2025: Everyone in This Bank is a Thief is the lastest Ernest Cunningham novel and the blurb is very enticing.

 

I managed to keep a tiny bit of distance between myself and the library recently, only a tiny bit mind you so there's 6 or so books on the stacks here from them, with a couple of ones I've been really looking forward to reading (The Deadly Dispute and The Thrill of It in particular). But Eden's up now, then there's The Sunbaker, Broke Road and Carved in Blood). And the Tour de France is about to start so on the one hand, no sleep, on the other, lots of time for reading whilst watching the race out of the corner of my eye.

On the review side of things, been a little quiet sorry, but have a look at Kataraina if you're looking for something that's utterly glorious and confronting, and A Shipwreck in Fiji for something thought-provoking but slightly less in your face.

 

I've probably forgotten something, or missed something that's due for release, so feel free to nudge me if there is anything. Otherwise, hopefully things are back on track a little, it's rained a tiny bit so there's less dust in the air and a titchy bit of restrained hope, fully realising that the 50 or so mls that did fall will do nothing in the long run, but it did feel nice to know that it hasn't forgotten the concept completely. Made the ducks happy anyway even if it did surprise a lot of chooks that have never seen the like. 

First newsletter for 2026. As anticipated January was a nightmare of fire weather, stinking heat, dust storms, kilometres walked checking on everyone and everything, no rain and did I mention heat....  Amazed we got anything done really other than slogging it out trying to keep the burnable trash in the house yards to a minimum and animals and birds alive. But here we are. Sort of upright.

I'm sending this out in two parts as I suspect it's a bit too long for the newsletter delivery system so other regions additions to follow in the next instalment.

Reviews

Got quite a few reviews into place this month, with a lot more hidden until their official publication date. Of them let's just say keep an eye out for No Good Deed by Katherine Kovacic, The Shark by Emma Styles, The Gambler by J.P. Pomare, Finders Keepers by Natalie Barelli and Shellybanks, Louise Milligan. 

Of the reviews published Last Rites by Ozzy Osbourne was a funny and emotional read for this lifelong fan.  

Back on the Crime Fiction front and starting out with the locals, Franz Josef by Alan Carter was another sterling outing in this series, as was The Redline by Adrian Hyland. A couple of debut offerings were The Canvas Killings, Elise Janes, a dark and sometimes gruesome undertaking with a past and present timeline and The Mall by Michael Armstrong is for those interested in high finance / high stakes real estate and the life of an inner city go getter. 

From other places My Inner Child Wants to Murder Mindfully by Karsten Dusse made me snort with laughter on occasions, but alas Quantum of Menace by Vaseem Khan was a bit of a disappointment with a really disjointed narrative that resulted in a rare DNF. 

Just Finished Pile

Just finished Shellybanks by Louise Milligan, When the Deep Dark Bush Swallows You Whole by Geoff Parkes and No One Was Supposed to Die At this Wedding by Catherine Mack. 

Current Reading Pile

This pile is (as of last night) made up of Dirt Trap by Michael Burge, Old Games by Fiona Hardy, What You Don't Know by Sandi Wallace and Redbelly Crossing by Candice Fox.  

Recent Arrivals / Upcoming Releases (Australia / NZ)

 

RELEASE DATE 1/2/1985 (acquired after the announcement of the death of Jean, prompted by one of the many tributes published to her).

Jean Bedford has a considerable talent for taking us beneath the surface of the everyday appearances and bold fronts women construct for themselves. She writes of women trapped, women ostracized, women on the edge of madness, women alone with their guilt and aimlessness and fear - but always she writes with warmth and a lovely simplicity that echoes on in the mind for a long time. 

RELEASE DATE 10/11/2007

Jamie wants to be the real thing. From the roots of her dyed blonde hair... There are a lot of things Jamie hates about her life: her dark hair, her dad's Stone Age Charter of Curfew Rights, her real name - Jamilah Towfeek. 

RELEASE DATE 23/7/2019

Although there are 22 separate Arab nationalities representing an enormous variety of cultural backgrounds and experiences, the portrayal of Arabs in Australia tends to range from homogenising (at best) to racist pop-culture caricatures. 

RELEASE DATE 22/2/2022

Poet Omar Sakr's debut novel is a fierce and fantastic force that illuminates the bonds that bind families together as well as what can break them. 

RELEASE DATE 1/7/2025

Joy is a gifted archer, a retired Olympian and a former stuntwoman on a cult Japanese tokusatsu show. Raised by a feckless grifter, her home is Bodkins Point. For 150 years, this small town has hosted an annual ultra-violent medieval festival called ‘Agincourt’. During the festival, Bodkins Point transforms – assuming a parallel identity that plays tug-of-war with the way its townsfolk live for the rest of the year. 

RELEASE DATE 29/7/2025

Through new investigations and first-hand accounts, Conspiracy Nation takes readers to the rallies, homes, courtrooms, secret chat rooms and $2000 Byron Bay luxury retreats where Australia’s conspiracy theories spread. 

RELEASE DATE 13/11/2025

When Nurse Mary is offered a contract to work in Milingimbi, one of the most beautiful islands in the Top End of Australia, she can’t believe her luck. Leaving behind the peaceful green fields of Ireland, her adventure takes her to the rugged red dirt, forests, beaches and saltwater crocodiles in the Outback. Little does she know, there are many challenges occurring behind the scenes, including missing persons, murders, drugs and dreadful encounters with dangerous native animals, leaving her and her colleague Amanda shocked at what they see each day.

RELEASE DATE 6/1/2026

It’s a beautiful day to be alive, Bill Dickerson thought, seconds before he tumbled from the viaduct onto the jagged rocks below . . . His awful death made national news. But still, one year on, Bill’s widow Carol has received no explanation about what happened. Was it suicide? An accident? Maybe murder? So Carol hires lawyer Ryan Bradley in her fight for justice. Ryan has just returned to the remote town of Nashville after ten years away, so he’s in no position to turn down work. 

RELEASE DATE: 31/01/2026   

Brothel madam Destiny Purcell controlled half the city's vice trade—until someone executed her on a golf course in the rain. The police blame a junkie. Case closed.  

RELEASE DATE 3/2/2026

A race against time for justice at the edge of the world. When a desperate young man arrives on an isolated Scottish isle, the locals view him with suspicion. But Niko is there for a reason – he’s running for his life, pursued by those who want him silenced for what he has seen in the Balkan War. His neighbour is a recluse known to the villagers as ‘Slow Fergus’. As the two men circle each other, Australian war crimes investigator Anita Costello races against sinister forces to locate her key witness. 

RELEASE DATE 1/3/2026

Devon, 1929. Members of the Pedhurst and de Reve families gather to hear unpopular matriarch Julia Pedhurst (née de Reve) read from her late husband’s will. One of the houseguests is fighter pilot Fred Willets, now an inspector in the Kalgoorlie Gold Squad, who has come to the UK as a beneficiary of the will. When Aunt Julia dies before the reading, and another death follows soon after, everybody in the manor house is a possible suspect. It is up to Willets, assisted by the bright young pharmacist Prudence Meadows, to crack this whodunnit.Read more

  

See part two for Other Places Releases

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!

As always Boxing Day will be about the books to be read whilst listening to the cricket. Still miss the ritual of the new Cliff Hardy book but I do have the latest by Alan Carter (Franz Josef) and Adrian Hyland (The Redline)  so that will do nicely, as would anything from the piles.

Here's hoping the books you wanted arrive, the treats you needed are eaten and everyone gets to the other side in one piece. 

Reviews

This time around not a lot of reviews but some great books. I swore I wasn't going to touch anything to do with the trial of Erin Patterson, and then The Mushroom Tapes wandered past my eye, and ... well Helen Garner, and a most unusual approach and I can heartily recommend that true crime / memoir / treatise. 

On the fictional side a trio of New Zealand / Ngaio Marsh entries, each very different and each hugely worth reading: The Mires by Tina Makereti, Ōkiwi Brown by Cristina Sanders and A House Built on Sand by Tina Shaw. Another from NZ, set in the US was Turning Point by Wayne Andrewartha and then there's the latest in the Fiji Island Mysteries - Death of a Diplomat by BM Allsopp, as well as Dinner at the Night Library by Hika Harada. Both of these last two have very strong sense of place and culture, and Dinner At the Night Library wasn't at all what I was expecting and utterly beguiling, if not mildly baffling. On the more predictable and all the more satisfying because of that side were Dead Lions by Mick Herron and No Less the Devil by Stuart MacBride. Exactly what they say on the tin.

Finally from the unexpected pleasures pile Quintus Huntley: Botany by Royce Leville was great good fun as well as just very good. 

 

Recent Arrivals / Upcoming Releases (Australia / NZ)

(With apologies for the misfiling last newsletter), and for the number of books - there's a lot in these piles. 

THE MILLENIUM JOB, Rob Gerrand Release Date: 4/1/2022

The mafia are trying to track down $1 billion stolen using special computer code written for a bank at the time of the Millennium Bug on 1 January 2000. Detective Inspector John "Winner" Nguyen has his work cut out for him, including visits to New York and Los Angeles, as he tries to discover who the dead man is, how he ended up in Deirdre's bed, and who killed him.   Read more about The Millennium Job

ONE ROSE LESS, Pat Flower Release Date: 15/10/2022

Suburbia can be murder … especially with a neighbour like Rose …  Sydney, 1961 When Bob Clifton witnesses a disturbing event in a block of flats near his home, everyone tells him he must be imagining things. But Bob can’t ignore his suspicion that he’s witnessed a murder, and there’s one man he knows will listen to him: his friend, Detective Inspector Herbert Swinton. (Added a couple of Flower's books as ebooks as my very ancient paper copies are a bit special).  Read more about One Rose Less

A WREATH OF WATER LILIES, Pat Flower Release Date: 15/10/2022

When a chance meeting in Provence leads Detective Inspector Herbert Swinton to the strange vineyard home of eccentric Pearl Langham – and her even stranger assortment of guests – his much-needed break looks set to turn into a busman’s holiday. Stranded with the housemates from hell and missing his Sydney home — and his beloved cold meat pies — he plots an early exit. But his plans are soon turned upside down when one of the guests is found dead in suspicious circumstances. And when a second body is found, it’s clear there’s murder afoot…  Read more about A Wreath of Water Lilies

BALACLAVA, Campbell Jeffreys Release Date: 27/8/2023

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. Read more about Balaclava 

THE WHITE CROW, Michael Robotham Release Date: 1/7/2025

Philomena McCarthy has defied the odds to become a young officer with the Metropolitan Police because her father and her uncles are notorious London gangsters. On patrol one night, Philomena finds a barefoot child, covered in blood, who says she can’t wake her mother. Meanwhile, three miles away, a London jeweler has a bomb strapped to his chest in his ransacked store and millions are missing.  Read more about The White Crow

INSIDE OUT, Kathleen Folbigg and Tracy Chapman Release Date: 2/9/2025

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.  Read more about Inside Out 

SEED, Bri Lee Release Date: 30/9/2025

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. Read more about Seed

KILLING FOR SPORT, Dwayne Russell Release Date:14/10/2025

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?  Read more about Killing for Sport 

DIRT TRAP, Michael Burge Release Date: 1/11/2025

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.  Read more about Dirt Trap 

WHAT YOU DON'T KNOW, Sandi Wallace Release Date: 3/11/2025

Home on a secluded island should be safe… but isn’t. Tess and Joe are living the dream on Wyeebo Island. She writes children’s mystery books and loves having her husband home on weekends. He has it all, a travelling job he excels in and a wife he adores. But how well do they really know who they’re married to?  Read more about What You Don't Know

NOT QUITE WHITE IN THE HEAD, Melissa Lucashenko Release Date: 4/11/2025 

Not Quite White in the Head offers unprecedented access to one of the nation's greatest writers as she invites us into the conversations that truly matter. Read more about Not Quite White in the Head 

THE MUSHROOM TAPES, Helen Garner, Chloe Hooper & Sarah Krasnostein Release Date: 4/11/2025

The Mushroom Tapes brings together three renowned writers of true crime: Helen Garner, Chloe Hooper and Sarah Krasnostein. For this extraordinary book, the lone wolves became a team. Garner, Hooper and Krasnostein tracked Erin Patterson’s preliminary hearings and trial, joined the media scrum at the Latrobe Valley Law Courts, slept over in Morwell and spent countless hours in fervent discussion of the case and the themes it raises: love, hate, jealousy, revenge, marriage, money, mycology and murder. Read more about The Mushroom Tapes

THE GREEN JOB, Rob Gerrand Release Date: 20/11/2025

Scientist Dr Chen Du is poisoned in his lab at the Badeker Institute, where he is researching wheat. There have been protests from Green groups outside the Institute demonstrating about GM or "frankenfoods". Investigating the death are Detective Inspector John "Winner" Nguyen with Sergeant Graham Brothers and young Constable Carol McTeish, fresh from their work on The Millennium Job.  Read more about The Green Job

A CHANCE ENCOUNTER, JP Pomare (audio) Release Date: 2/12/2025

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. Read more about A Chance Encounter 

THE CASINO, Iain Ryan Release Date: 30/12/2025

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.  Read more about The Casino

HOW TO KILL A GUY IN TEN DATES, Shailee Thompson Release Date: 3/2/2026

When Jamie Prescott attends a speed-dating event at the behest of her best friend, Laurie, she expects to meet a roster of mediocre men and have a few laughs. She doesn’t expect one of her dates to have his throat slit at their table during a blackout. When the lights come back on, there are more bodies on the floor, the doors are locked, and there’s a murderer among them. So much for a fun night. Read more about How to Kill a Guy in Ten Dates

THE GAMBLER, JP Pomare Release Date: 24/2/2026

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. But as Reid delves further into the case, the stakes are higher than he imagined. There are invisible players pulling the strings. Will he walk away a winner or pay for the ultimate gamble with his life?  Read more about The Gambler

HAZE, Sam Elliott Release Date: 24/2/2026

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. Read more about Haze 

OLD GAMES, Fiona Hardy Release Date: 24/2/2026

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. Read more about Old Games 

SHELLYBANKS, Louise Milligan Release Date: 3/3/2026

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. Read more about Shellybanks 

REDBANK CROSSING, Candice Fox Release Date: 31/3/2026

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). Read more about Redbelly Crossing

THE HOUSEWIFE, Natalie Barelli Release Date: 30/6/2026

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.  Read more about The Housewife

 

Recent Arrivals / Upcoming Releases (Other Places)

Some of these are review books, others are simply books I've wanted to read. 

THE SPIRAL STAIRCASE, Ethel Lina White  Release Date: 1933

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. Read more about The Spiral Staircase 

THE CLOCK HOUSE MURDERS, Yukito Ayatsuji  Release Date: 1991

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...  Read more about The Clock House Murders

THE PERPETUAL ASTONISHMENT OF JONATHON FAIRFAX, Christopher Shevlin  Release Date:  2012

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. Read more about The Perpetual Astonishment of Jonathon Fairfax

ONE TRUE WORD, Snæbjörn Arngrímsson  Release Date: 2022

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. Read more about One True Word 

THE NORTH LIGHT, Hideo Yokoyama  Release Date: 2023

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. Read more about The North Light  

NO ONE WAS SUPPOSED TO DIE AT THIS WEDDING, Catherine Mack Release Date: 13/5/2025

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. Read more about No One Was Supposed to Die at This Wedding

THE MALT WHISKY MURDERS, Natalie Jayne Clark  Release Date:  5/6/2025

Whisky is a bloody business . . .

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.  Read more about The Malt Whisky Murders 

A DEADLY INHERITANCE, Charlotte Vassell Release Date: 14/7/2025

Two murders. Rosie wakes up at 3am already feeling the twinges of a brutal hangover - an afternoon spent day drinking with her uni pals has left her rather the worse for wear. She creeps downstairs for a glass of water - only to stumble onto a shocking, bloody scene in the kitchen. One will. Read more about A Deadly Inheritance  

THE MAN WHO DIED SEVEN TIMES, Yasuhiko Nishizawa  Release Date:  14/8/2025

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. Read more about The Man Who Died Seven Times

THE MYSTERIOUS CASE OF THE MISSING CRIME WRITER, Ragnar Jónasson  Release Date: 21/8/2025

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. Read more about The Mysterious Case of the Missing Crime Writer 

THE VANISHING CHERRY BLOSSOM BOOKSHOP, Takuya Asakura  Release Date: 28/8/2025

As the last petal falls, the final page is turned… Welcome to The Cherry Blossom Bookshop, a haven for book lovers that only appears during the fleeting cherry blossom season. Nestled amidst the bloom of delicate petals, you’ll find a sanctuary for those burdened by regrets and past sorrows. Here, Sakura, the mysterious young owner, and her wise calico cat, Kobako, patiently await the arrival of souls in need of solace and healing.  Read more about The Vanishing Cherry Blossom Bookshop  

TOO OLD FOR THIS, Samantha Downing  Release Date: 28/8/2025

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. Read more about Too Old For This 

LAST RITES, Ozzy Osborne Release Date 7/10/2025

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. Read more about Last Rites 

QUANTUM OF MENACE, Vaseem Khan  Release Date: 23/10/2025

Q is out of MI6 . . .
. . . and in over his head  Read more about Quantum of Menace  

WHAT HAPPENED THAT NIGHT, Nicci French Release Date:  31/1/2026

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? 

AND THE CORPSE WORE TARTAN, Stuart MacBride Release Date: 10/2/2026

Move Over Miss Marple . . . The great and the not-so-good are gathered at Skirivour Castle Hotel, in the heart of the Highlands, for the wedding of the year – but they weren’t expecting Detective Sergeant Roberta Steel to crash their party. And get horribly, horribly drunk. Read more about And the Corpse Wore Tartan 

A Sociopath’s Guide to a Successful Marriage, M.K. Oliver Release Date: 12/2/2026

There’s a dead body in my living room. I’ve not called the police because it was I who stabbed him. Seven times in all. The truth is, it’s surprisingly difficult to dispatch someone with a vegetable knife. In case you’re wondering, the dead man is not my husband. I do resent our pitiful sex life and his woeful lack of ambition, but I wouldn’t murder him for it. Not yet, anyway. Right now, I have far more pressing concerns: scheming to get my daughter into the perfect school; buying my dream home in Hampstead; and disposing of a corpse. Read more about A Sociopath’s Guide to a Successful Marriage

 

As always I've undoubtedly missed something, so feel free to nudge me if there is anything that should be included next time around. Whenever that is.

 

Predictability is overrated. Which is another way of saying this newsletter should have come out in early September and it didn't. 

But on the upside a lot of reading and reviewing has been getting done so maybe less posting, more reading might be the trick I've been searching for.

Anyway in the review lists:

I caught up on some badly overdue ones The Pool by Hannah Tunnicliffe, Murder on the Marlow Belle by Robert Thorogood being particular cases in point. Then got stuck into some "Other Places" books The Restaurant of Lost Recipes by Hisashi Kashiwai and Innocent Guilt by Remi Kone (this last one is highly recommended by the way).

Then the locals, firstly the standouts in amongst them included Five Found Dead by Sulari Gentill, The Unquiet Grave by Dervla McTiernan, Black Silk and Buried Secrets by Deborah Challinor, Highway 13 by Fiona McFarlane, The Hollow Girl by Lyn Yeowart, One Dark Night by Hannah Richell and The White Feather Murders by Laraine Stephens. In terms of recommendations from this list then they are all good and very very different, but Five Found Dead is great fun, Black Silk and Buried Secrets is fascinating (and part of an ongoing series by the looks of it), Highway 13 incredibly clever, and The White Feather Murders another really good entrant in this Melbourne based historical series.

The not so standout (okay so I had no idea what the hell was going on here but didn't like any of it) was The Empress Murders by Toby Schmitz which I suspect is a very long / straight example of YMMV. In that vein Adam Donnison took one for domestic harmony and read / and wasn't impressed by The Turing Protocol by Nick Croydon.

On the NZ piles (which are still very behind which I'm feeling very guilty about but will try to do better) The Deeper the Dead by Catherine Lea, The Night She Fell by Eileen Merriman and The Birthmark Murders by Janus Lucky. All very different, but could appeal to a range of readers. I particularly like the series that The Deeper the Dead is part of.

Of the reading stacks of recent and past days Dust by Michael Brissenden was an excellent read exploring the way that the conspiracy theorist groups (cookers et al) can be used and manipulated in so many different ways. And I've just started Everyone in This Bank is a Thief by Benjamin Stevenson and am hooked, well and truly.

(Images below should all be active links taking you to the full book listing and/or the review already available on the site).

Recent Arrivals

Firstly, you would have all read about the Bendigo Writers Festival's mishandling of external pressure. In light of their behaviour some of the recent arrivals are books from the writers who withdrew (listed in no particular order): 

Released 30/5/2023: Winner of the David Unaipon Award, an engaging, moving and often funny yarn about growing up in the home of two Aunties running a sheep farm in rural Gundagai.

Released 21/3/2022:  'I told you this was a thirst so great it could carve rivers.'This fierce debut from award-winning writer Evelyn Araluen confronts the tropes and iconography of an unreconciled nation with biting satire and lyrical fury. 

Released 1/1/2017: Jacky was running. There was no thought in his head, only an intense drive to run. There was no sense he was getting anywhere, no plan, no destination, no future. All he had was a sense of what was behind, what he was running from. Jacky was running.

Released 1/10/2024  This is the story of a founding document in Australian democracy and the people who made it. It paints a vibrant picture of the profound and ancient culture of Australia’s first peoples, in all its continuing vigour.

Released 1/7/2012: Esma's quest for The One was never going to be easy but when family, friends and meddling employers are thrown into the equation, her path to true love suddenly takes a great big detour.

Released 2/9/2025: With a focus on two of today's most contested fields, academia and the media, Discipline tallies the price we all pay when those with privilege choose to remain silent.

Released 2/8/2023:  One of the lucky few with a job during the Depression, Peggy’s just starting out in life. She’s a bagging girl at the Angliss meatworks in Footscray, a place buzzing with life as well as death, where the gun slaughterman Jack has caught her eye – and she his.

Released 1/5/2024:  Peripathetic is about shit jobs. About being who you are and who you aren't online. About knowing a language four times. About living on the interstices. About thievery. About wanting. About the hyperreal. About weirdness.

Released 28/1/2025:  Sonia Orchard was in her forties when she told a therapist about the boyfriend she had when she was fifteen. Sure, he had been a decade older than her, but it was consensual ... wasn't it? To her surprise, Sonia broke down in tears, then began to shake uncontrollably - an unmistakable expression of trauma that lasted for days. She was clearly not okay, but could the relationship she'd thought was loving really have been abuse? Had she been groomed?

New Releases & More Recent Arrivals

Recent Releases may or may not also be recent arrivals, but I've combined the two listings here as this relates mostly (but not all) to crime fiction.

Starting out with the Australian / NZ Contingent:

Released 29/7/2025: In 1915, two days before being sent to fight in WWI, Jack O'Rourke dived into Sydney Harbour to save a drowning stranger, Samuel Lomond. Four years later, battle-scarred and weary, Jack returns home only to discover that Samuel has been brutally murdered – and that he's been left his rural property, Booroomba.

Released 5/8/2025:  Did anyone know Dr Gabriel Beaufort better than Ruby Rose Gillespie? They were friends at high school. They are secret lovers now. And because he is also the lung-transplant surgeon who saved her life, Ruby will forever be in his debt. But then the body of Dr Beaufort is found in the wetlands next to the hospital, on the same day as cystic fibrosis sufferer Ruby is readmitted with a sudden fever.

Released 31/7/2025:  Everyone thinks they can trust their therapist. We are good listeners. But what if we’re good liars, too?

Released 26/8/2025: 3rd Billie Walker Mystery - Naples, 1943. Deep within a secret network of underground tunnels, a woman takes shelter from a wartime air raid and prays her husband will return safely.

Released 26/8/2025: On the remote West Coast of the South Island, vast forests stretch out between mountain ranges and rugged beaches. There, in the small town of Koraha, not a lot happens - until a young girl with blood on her hands walks out of the bush and into the local store, collapsing to the floor.

 

Released 26/8/2025: After her parents’ death in a car crash two years ago, Eve is back in the tumbledown family house on Magnetic Island, surrounded by nosy neighbours, an over-friendly possum and a cast of eccentric locals.

Released 2/9/2025: It’s 1973 and Detective Sergeant Eleanor Smith is finally assigned her first homicide case. A woman’s body has been discovered at Harrowford Hall, a home for unmarried mothers deep in the Victorian countryside. (There's a review of this one on the site already).

Released 2/9/2025:  In the middle of the night in a remote part of Western Australia's goldfields, the thud of a mallet on a marker peg sets off a chain reaction that unearths secrets long buried.

Released 2/9/2025: Jessica Mowbrie, beaten and dumped in the bush like a sack of garbage and lying comatose in a hospital bed: lucky to be alive.

Released 2/9/2025:  Senior Detective Antigone Pollard is fearless. Armed with a trained police dog, a black belt in judo and the will to speak her mind, she faces opposition head-on.

Released 30/9/2025:  Ten suspects. Ten heists. A puzzle only Ernest Cunningham can solve. I’ve spent the last few years solving murders. But a bank heist is a new one, even for me. I’ve never been a hostage before. The doors are chained shut. No one in or out. Which means that when someone in the bank is murdered, hostages become suspects. 

Released 1/10/2025: All-round chaos merchant Nell Jenkins has returned to her small hometown to fulfil family duties for the mother and brother she' s barely seen since making her escape as a teen. But her homecoming isn' t the triumph it should be.

Released 1/10/2025:  Follow Paul Cutler on his next adventure as he fights the cocaine gold rush. Assuming his new identity as Paul O’Keefe, Paul is tasked with finding the supplier of a surge of Mexican cartel meth flooding Australian streets. Assigned to infiltrate a newly appointed security company at Fremantle Port, he discovers a clandestine world of off-the-books operations, and a business front that goes far beyond mere security. There’s a dangerous game afoot for who gets control of the port’s smuggling operations, and O’Keefe is caught in the crossfire.

Released 14/10/2025:  In a dying town, Ro Crowley waits for her son on the evening of his 21st birthday. but Sam never comes home. His footprints in the dust of three abandoned houses offer the only clue to his final movements. One set in. One set out.

Released 28/10/2025: Em has lived a quiet life with her complicated mother and is now looking for love and a potential escape from her small hometown. When a masked man kidnaps her in the dark of night, though, she is drawn into a terrifying world.

Released 2/11/2025:  DS Nick Chester returns with a new case that will test his limits. The tiny South Island town of Franz Josef is perched precariously on New Zealand’s Alpine Fault. It already faces devastating earthquakes, floods and landslides. And now it harbours a killer.

Released 25/11/2025: 3rd in the Jesse Redpath series, It’s the festive season in the Windmark Ranges and Sergeant Jesse Redpath’s day is going from bad to worse. It begins with her having to arrest the usual drunks and troublemakers and ends with the death of a colleague out on the Redline road. A death which may or may not have been an accident.

Released 30/12/2025: Sixteen years ago, teenage Maddie Marshall's body was found on a desolate beach near her hometown, Carrinya. Vibrant, feisty Maddie was the only daughter of a high-profile politician. The case was the talk of the town but was ultimately never solved.

Released 24/2/2026:  "You’re not going to murder me in the night, are you?" Emily asks. "Haha. That’s funny," I say. Of course, I’m not going to murder her in the night. I need my laptop back first. That’s the whole point of making friends with Emily Harper, author of the hugely successful novel Diary of an Octopus . So I could get inside her apartment and take back what’s mine.

 

Other Locations: 

Released 2/7/2024:  Fierce, mixed-race fighter Shindo has been kidnapped by the yakuza. After brutally beating most of them in an attempt to escape, she is forced to work as a bodyguard to protect the gang boss's sheltered daughter Shoko, a strange, friendless eighteen-year-old who could order Shindo's death in a moment. 

Released 28/8/2025:  The Pink Labyrinth is one of the bomb-scarred city's most shady neighbourhoods. There, in the dead of night a patrolling policeman catches a young Buddhist monk digging in the back yard of The Black Cat Cafe, a notorious brothel. In the shallow grave at his feet lie the dead body of a woman, her face disfigured beyond recognition, and the corpse of a black cat.

Released 11/9/2025:  Do you know the name for someone who loves reading in bed, or what a binfluencer does? How about the medieval invention of Lubberland as a place for lazy teenagers, or the story of Mayday as a request for help? Lexicographer extraordinaire and Queen of Countdown's Dictionary Corner, Susie Dent does and here are her greatest discoveries.

Released 19/9/2025: What happens when a serial killer forgets that he’s a serial killer? At Sunset House the tea is barely introduced to a teabag, the carpets are permanently flecked with glitter and care assistant Jolene would rather be watching daytime television than caring for the elderly – but someone might just have confessed to murder.

Released 25/9/2025:  Who's got time to think about murder when there's a wedding to plan? It’s been a quiet year for the Thursday Murder Club. Joyce is busy with table plans and first dances. Elizabeth is grieving. Ron is dealing with family troubles, and Ibrahim is still providing therapy to his favourite criminal.

Released 30/9/2025:  When the invitation to attend the press opening of a luxury Swiss hotel—owned by reclusive billionaire Marcus Leidmann—arrives, it’s like the answer to a prayer. Three years after the birth of her youngest child, Lo Blacklock is ready to reestablish her journalism career, but post-pandemic travel journalism is a very different landscape from the one she left ten years ago.

Released 23/10/2025: A darkly humorous and warmly touching suspense novel about friendship, love and death, The Winter Job flies a hundred and twenty kilometres an hour straight into the darkest heart of a Finnish winter night.

Released 3/3/2026:  In the beautiful and dangerous landscape of Lake Geneva, in the shadow of the Swiss Alps, renowned writer Marceau Miller is found dead. In the wake of the tragedy, his wife, Sarah, discovers a manuscript he’s left behind, entitled The Story of Marceau Miller.

 

As always I've undoubtedly missed something, so feel free to nudge me if there is anything that should be included next time around. Whenever that is.