I realise this is ridiculously, embarrassingly late, but better late than never right. The longlists were announced ages ago, as were the winners so a summary:
Best Crime Novel
Ritual of Fire, DV Bishop (WINNER)
The Caretaker, Gabriel Bergmoser
Pet, Cathering Chidgey
Devil's Breath, Jill Johnson
Going Zero, Anthony McCarten
Expectant, Vanda Symon
Best Younger Readers Novel
Miracle, Jennifer Lane (WINNER)
Caged, Susan Brocker
Katpio Joe: Wolf's Lair, Brian Falkner
Nicolai's Quest, Diane Robinson
Nor'east Swell, Aaron Topp
Best First Novel
Dice, Claire Baylis (WINNER)
El Flamingo, Nick Davies
Devil's Breath, Jill Johnson
A Better Class of Criminal, Cristian Kelly
Mami Suzuki: Private Eye, Simon Rowe
The entire shortlist for this year is well worth tracking down - there's some stellar books and some fabulous winners here.
Ritual of Fire
Florence. Summer, 1538.
A night patrol finds a rich merchant hanged and set ablaze in the city’s main piazza. More than mere murder, this killing is intended to put the fear of God into Florence. Forty years earlier on this date, puritanical monk Girolamo Savonarola was executed the same way in the same place. Does this new killing mean Savonarola’s vengeful spirit has risen again?
Or are his fanatical disciples plotting to revive the monk’s regime of holy terror? Cesare Aldo has his suspicions but is hunting thieves and fugitives in the Tuscan countryside, leaving Constable Carlo Strocchi to investigate the ritual killing. When another important merchant is slain even more publicly than the first, those rich enough to escape the summer heat are fleeing to their country estates. But the Tuscan hills can also be dangerous places.
Soon growing religious fervor combines with a scorching heatwave to drive the city ever closer to madness, while someone is stalking powerful men that forged lifelong alliances during the dark days of Savonarola and his brutal followers. Unless Aldo and Strocchi can work together to stop the killer, Florence could become a bonfire of the vanities once more . . .
Ritual of Fire, D.V. Bishop
Third in the Cesare Aldo series from D.V. Bishop, RITUAL OF FIRE is set in a time of change for Aldo, his colleagues and his personal life. He's been sent to the Tuscan countryside, hunting thieves and fugitives whilst Florence battles a heatwave, drought and what turns out to be a series of violent murders of rich merchants. Luckily there is a connection between these merchants and the town that Aldo is exiled in, with one of the deaths occuring locally, giving him more than enough reason to insert himself back into Florence and the ongoing investigation. Which is just as well because his young colleague, Strocchi is struggling. With increasingly complicated multiple murders and the religious fervour building in the city.
There's definitely something very odd about these merchant deaths. The first body was discovered by the night patrol, hanged and set ablaze on top of a cart, displayed in the city's main piazza. Forty years before on the exact same day, the puritanical monk Savonarola had been executed in the same way and place. The posters that immediately start appearing around Florence declaring Savonarola lives, and the mass hysteria, chanting and rumours that start swirling, make the heat and pressure that the citizenry is already dealing even more edgy, hysterical and very risky for authorities. More murders follow, more religious fervour builds, and the connection between the merchants becomes obvious, sending some high-profile residents of Florence into panic, fleeing the city to their hill-top villas, finding, to their cost, that the danger has followed them. Whoever is committing these murders is clever, resourceful and tricky to identify. Whatever personal qualms Strocchi has about Aldo's personal life have to be put aside, and whatever revenge his bosses are trying to inflict becomes less than important as they both battle to bring a cruel murderer to justice, and stop an entire population from losing their collective minds.
Having been a big fan of this series from its inception, it was particularly fascinating to read RITUAL OF FIRE at this particular point in history, when inciting mass violence seems so easy, and so many people are easily triggered into believing the most ridiculous of falsehoods. Everyone knows that the monk Savonarola was executed, yet so many people are rushing about the place chanting "Savonarola lives". People who know (or suspect), that have so many reasons to not give a toss about Cesare Aldo's sexual persuasion, are bent out of shape over it. Even the higher-ups, punishing a man who does a good job but says what he thinks / does what he believes is right, are motivated by ego, or power, or <insert your petty childish predilection of choice here>. All of this is so prescient with the world we live in today, that the novel should probably have come with a teeth-grinding may ensue warning.
Where the second novel in the series, THE DARKEST SIN, explored and drew out the personal aspects of Aldo's life more, RITUAL OF FIRE returns to a plot based exploration of society and it's problems at the forefront, and the characters and their personal lives and inner thoughts building, bending and developing as they navigate the world around them. Except, of course, for Aldo, whose personal life remains hidden and circumspect. It's a fascinating series - not just for fans of historical fiction - it takes the reader into scenarios and motivations that still, soberingly, ring true today.
The fourth book in the series, A DIVINE FURY, has just been announced as a longlist contender for the 2024 McIlvanney Award (Bloody Scotland): https://bloodyscotland.com/longlist-revealed-for-the-mcilvanney-prize-20...
Miracle
Born in the middle of Australia’s biggest-ever earthquake, Miracle is fourteen when her world crumbles. Thanks to her dad’s new job at Compassionate Cremations — which falls under suspicion for Boorunga’s spate of sudden deaths — the entire town turns against their family. Miracle is tormented by her classmates, even by Oli, the boy she can’t get out of her head. She fears for her agoraphobic mother, and for her angelic, quake-damaged brother, Julian.
When Oli plays a cruel trick on Miracle, he sets off a chain of devastating events. Then her dad is arrested for a brutal attack. Miracle takes the full weight on her shoulders. How can she convince the town of her dad’s innocence?
Miracle, Jennifer Lane
Being a 14 year old girl is never an easy undertaking, but living in a dying town, in a family beset with problems makes Miracle's life that bit more complicated.
She's known as Miracle because she was born in the middle of Australia's biggest-ever earthquake. The same quake that so traumatised her older brother that he's been left living with an ongoing mental health / nervous issue. Her mother's agoraphobic, her father's not coping with unemployment, and the boy she really likes, Oli, is playing really cruel tricks on her. All in all, a bit of a mess. Anyone who has read Lane's first book ALL OUR SECRETS might see the ghost of Gracie in Miracle - she's a dab hand at the creation of strong, young girls, surrounded by chaotic families, stepping up and in.
Which would make you think that her father's new job at Compassionate Cremations would be a good thing, but that just ends up adding to Miracle's feelings of guilt because she's the one that pushed her father towards the job. When the Crematorium becomes the centre of town gossip about a spate of sudden deaths, and her father is arrested after a brutal attack on the boy she fancies there, the job seems less important, and her role in putting her father it, and her reactions to Oli's behaviour seems like the tipping point.
The connection that all readers will have to have to get MIRACLE to work is obviously going to be with Miracle herself. A brave, conflicted, complicated young girl, she's believable and really real - alternatively bolshie and fragile, whip smart and thick as a brick. The story really does centre around the concept of bravery, coping and pressing on. It's also about learning empathy and understanding, and finding the good in what seems like absolutely dreadful situations, and dreadful people.
The plot is cleverly constructed to keep the focus on Miracle, while all around her events seem to swirl and move into and out of focus, never quite giving the reader time to settle, or necessarily to pick up on a direction. In the early stages the role of the Crematorium, and its boss, her parents, her brother, her aunt and the extended family, and other members of the town shapeshift into and out of the main story line, with Miracle dealing with a very big signal to noise ratio at points. Her confusion is palpable, her panic very real, and the reactions of everybody around her used to highlight a complicated scenario.
At the end of the day though, as events spiral further, Oli succumbs to his injuries, and doubts start to emerge about Miracle's dad's involvement, the family pushes and shoves against each other, and Miracle finds out a lot about growing up. It's an interesting layer to place within a crime story, and one that I found utterly fascinating and disconcerting all at the same time.
Dice
A compelling courtroom drama, Dice is an incredibly timely exploration of how sexual violence is viewed in our society.
Four teenage boys invent a sex game based on rolling dice and doing what the numbers say.
They are charged with multiple sexual offences against three teenage girls.
Twelve random jurors are brought together in a trial to work out what actually happened.
Only they can say whether crimes have been committed and who should be punished.
How does the jury find?
Dice is a stunning courtroom drama told from the perspective of a diverse group of ordinary people - the jury. How will twelve women and men, aged from eighteen to seventy-two with hugely disparate backgrounds, beliefs and experience, decide whether consent was given or crimes were committed?
How can they possibly arrive at a unanimous verdict? How will justice be properly served?
In this dazzlingly accomplished and gripping debut novel, chapters are told through the point of view of each juror as the trial unfolds. The reader too becomes a jury member as the evidence is presented and information is withheld, fragmented and re-told by different witnesses. Each person must decide where the truth lies.
Will the verdict deliver justice, or just reflect the prejudices and differences in the jury?
Dice, Claire Baylis
WARNING: This book discusses sexual offences, and the related trial proceedings.
DICE is a debut novel from NZ author Claire Baylis. The subject matter is confronting, not just because it is seemingly based on a real life case, the styling is inventive, and the outcomes devastating, infuriating and searingly illuminating.
DICE takes the reader through the complicated trial of four teenage boys, charged with the sexual assault of multiple victims, based around a sex game they invented. The novel works it's way through jury selection, aspects of the trial and jury deliberation to the final verdict. Unsurprisingly, the author of this work is a law researcher, with the awarding of her PhD coming with a coveted Doctoral Dean's List entry which included the notation "whose work makes an outstanding contribution to their field of research." You might, therefore, be forgiven for thinking that this novel is going to come across as a research tome, which it definitely doesn't. The subject is difficult, but the insight into the workings of the jury in this case, and the impact of the facts on all parties, is elegantly delivered. In the author's own words:
My critical thesis drew on real jurors' voices to investigate the use of the story model of jury decision-making, heuristic processing and the influence of rape mythology in sexual violence cases. The novel is narrated from the jurors' perspectives in a fictional case, which raises issues of consent, "date-rape", the use of social media and the Legal System's response. By writing from a variety of perspectives the novel also examines concepts of truth, bias and subjectivity.
It was almost impossible to come away from this novel without that aspect of "rape mythology" resonating in my reader's head. The impact that the case had on the victims in particular, and the jury member's was stark and very confronting. The way that the jury system and, in particular, adversarial justice systems, appear utterly unfit for purpose, not just because of the changing impacts of social media and societal sensibility, remain impossible to forget. The comparisons between the story here, and many of the recent, rape and sexual assault related cases in Australia, impossible to avoid, what with the taking of sides, the attack dogs, the puerile and intrusive commentary.
This is, undoubtedly, confronting reading. How teenage boys could "invent" a game that involves dice to select victims and their means of assault should be beyond a reader's compression, sadly it's not. How the victims would react, feel and subsequently behave should be unpredictable and confronting, and sadly it is. How the justice system handles the case, how member's of the jury can put aside personal prejudices and expectations should hold some hope for an improvement in attitudes and reactions, but sadly there was something soberingly prescient in there. Of course, knowing that there was a real case at the back of this novel made it considerably more discomforting, and worrying.
All of that might be making it sound like a novel best approached with considerable caution, but there is also something informative and very illuminating about DICE. In using the perspective of each of the jurors to explore the case, with all their reactions and preconceptions, it examines the potential pitfalls of the legal process, and the way that individual prejudices are very hard to detect, and manage in that sort of group dynamic. The depth of the social commentary here is useful, informative, and illuminating, as is the way that the novel itself sometimes lurched around in some of the back-stories, and got a tad messy at points. Somehow that made it more realistic, more moving, and considerably more upsetting. Life is messy, the world is changing, and our legal systems need to put some work into keeping up. Good crime fiction, like DICE, tackles these sorts of questions head on.
The Caretaker
An isolated, empty ski resort in the off-season. A woman who doesn't want to be found. A man who may not be who he appears to be. A game of cat and mouse - with deadly consequences. On the run from a controlling husband and his underworld associates in Melbourne, Charlotte has adopted a new identity and found a job as an off-season caretaker in a tiny, deserted alpine resort. Some dangerous people are looking for Charlotte and so she's lying low, tending to the lodges, happy to be alone, but jumping every time a floor creaks or the wind whistles through the empty buildings. She's trying to convince herself she's okay, that she got away. But then strange things start happening around the resort. And Charlotte starts to realise that every escape route is being sealed off, one by one. From Gabriel Bergmoser, the master of propulsive, page-turning storytelling, The Caretaker will have readers second-guessing themselves at every turn. What's real and what isn't? Who's dangerous and who isn't? And who will survive?
The Caretaker, Gabriel Bergmoser
Gabriel Bergmoser's one of those author's that is building a back catalogue of creepy, tense thrillers full of interesting psychological analysis and, frankly, disturbing scenarios. Which is exactly what you're given in THE CARETAKER.
Charlotte is on the run from a controlling husband and his underworld associates, adopting a new identity and taking on the role of off-season caretaker at a small, deserted alpine resort, way off any beaten track. She's lying low, doing the small maintenance and cleaning jobs required, revelling in the isolation, dealing with the limited communications and jumping at every unexpected noise.
Until strange things start to happen around the resort, and the only staying guest there starts to seem very ominous, especially as her escape routes are disappearing, one by one, and the options for how she's going to survive dwindle before her very eyes.
Needless to say, this is a creepy one. Probably creepy enough to put you off small ski villages for life, to say nothing of being a caretaker of a few under-rented villas and unexpected guests. Basically we're talking a novel that could be seen as a threat to remote area hospitality jobs. Although there's also the potential for this to be very empowering. After all, if Charlotte can survive this, beat the very bad guys, and escape, then she's taken on some seriously stacked against her odds, and won. Which is a very attractive idea, and may just be enough for readers to deal with the fright and press on, if you're not utterly hooked by the narrative in THE CARETAKER in the first place. Which this reader must admit was so engaging it became a couple of sittings read, during daylight I might add, even if it was in a remote place.
The strengths of this novel are many, it's essentially a psychological thriller with the potential of threat and peril infecting both Charlotte's reactions, and the readers. Charlotte, as the main character, holds up to the focus very well, she's believable and easy to relate to. The sense of place is vivid and very compelling, with the isolation, and wildness of the place nicely reflecting the feelings and responses of Charlotte as she battles an invisible threat, that becomes slowly more solid, and closer than she had hoped when she first disappeared into this remote location. At this point the remoteness becomes less of a protection and more part of the problem, although there is the possibility, if she's good enough, that she can use that to her own advantage. Whether or not she's completely successful, well you'll have to read the book to find out what happens to Charlotte, and whether she has a future in which to create a new life.
Pet
Like every other girl in her class, twelve-year-old Justine is drawn to her glamorous, charismatic new teacher, and longs to be her pet. However, when a thief begins to target the school, Justine’s sense that something isn't quite right grows ever stronger. With each twist of the plot, this gripping story of deception and the corrosive power of guilt takes a yet darker turn. Young as she is, Justine must decide where her loyalties lie.
Set in New Zealand in 1984 and 2014, and probing themes of racism and misogyny, Pet is an elegant and chilling psychological thriller by the bestselling author of The Wish Child, Remote Sympathy and The Axeman’s Carnival.
Pet, Catherine Chidgey
Unable to put down Catherine Chidgey's PET, I struggled to sleep last night as I thought long and hard about the "conventions" of society. If you're of a similar age to this reviewer, you'll have probably lived through the experience of the manic house clean, the wearing of "the good clothes" and the general heightened buzz that went with contact with social elites - the doctors, banks managers, religious leaders and teachers that we were told to look up to. So many of those supposed "leaders" turning out to have been people that systematically used their power and influence to corrupt, abuse and generally conflate their own positions. In PET Chidgey sets up a scenario that looks deep into the selective blindness of a teaching profession that refused to acknowledge the wrongs that they could see building before them, and the way that the questioning is left to a young girl, struggling with the death of her mother from breast cancer, what that could mean for her own future as she hurtles into puberty, and all the usual pressures that come with the heightened hormone hit of that age.
At the heart of this story is a master manipulator - Mrs Angela Price. The teacher who arrived in a small Catholic school, glamorous, oh so exotic. She drives an American sports car, dresses beautifully, a blonde-bombshell in a very run of the mill environment. She's teaching a class of small-town kids, all of whom muddle along together, including the very different Asian girl in their midst. Amy is the daughter of the local fruit and vegetable merchants, and she's best friends with Justine, the daughter of the local antique dealer, whose mother recently died from breast cancer. Catholic, devout and seemingly happy, Justine, Amy and the other kids at school lead typical lives of teenagers in the 1980's.
This is also a novel of two distinct timelines and in 2014, Justine is now a mother herself, dealing with the increasing confusion and creeping loss of her beloved father - who is now in the care of a nursing home, his latest attendant reminding Justine very strongly of her past.
In the school though, things are getting weird. Small, petty thefts start to happen in Justine's classroom - and everyone starts to miss things, except Amy. Mrs Price is playing teacher's pet favourites with the entire class, befriending some kids, rejecting others. Sweetly nice, her games are known about by the school principle and some of the nuns, but seemingly accepted. Mrs Price, is after all, a master manipulator, and even Justine is initially sucked into the vortex of heightened emotion, becoming the ultimate teacher's pet, which turns out to be fatal for some, and life-changing for Justine and her father.
Elegantly delivered, the story is told from Justine's point of view and whilst she has lost her mother, and is struggling with puberty and a bad case of epilepsy, she is close to her father, who is a decent and loving man who cares about his daughter, even as he finds himself sucked into the vortex of Mrs Price. She's also profoundly conflicted by the impact that Mrs Price has had on her friendship with Amy. Whilst a few of the kids at the school start to question what's happening, Justine's closeness to Mrs Price allows her to see that there's something weird going on, but she's a kid, and can't find a way to prove it to the adults around her, and then it's too late.
Whilst PET is about manipulation and how society conventions provide fertile ground for obfuscation, it's also an interesting exploration of the female perspective. When the perpetrator and the revealer are both female, the power imbalance is psychological, and dangerously informed. The complications of life as a pubescent girl are shared, matter-of-factly as they should be. That's not to say that this is somehow a "girl's novel". It's a female perspective of men as well - there are boyfriends, fathers, fellow-students, teachers and men throughout - sometimes viewers, sometimes participants, and most importantly, amongst the manipulated. It's also an inter-generational novel. Just as it was when we were kids, and we were being told to look up to many that turned out to be paeodophiles, or corrupt and self-serving, it was left to a lot of those kids to question, and most importantly find the platform and the words to reveal.
Devil's Breath
I've always been better with plants than people . . .
Eustacia Rose is a Professor of Botanical Toxicology who lives alone in London with only her extensive collection of poisonous plants for company. She tends to her garden with meticulous care. Her life is quiet. Her schedule never changes. Until the day she hears a scream and the temptation to investigate proves irresistible.
Through her telescope, Professor Rose is drawn into the life of an extraordinarily beautiful neighbour, Simone, and nicknames the men who visit her after poisonous plants according to the toxic effect they have on Simone. But who are these four men? And why does Eustacia Rose recognize one of them?
Just as she preserves her secret garden, she feels inexplicably compelled to protect her neighbour. But when her precious garden is vandalized and someone close to Simone is murdered with a toxin derived from a rare poisonous plant, Eustacia finds herself implicated in the crime and decides to take matters into her own hands . . .
Devil's Breath, Jill Johnson
Devil’s Breath is the first novel in a new crime series built around a neurodivergent professor of botanical toxicology, Eustacia Rose. Full Review at Newtown Review of Books
Going Zero
TWO HOURS TO VANISH
Ten people have been carefully selected to Beta test a ground-breaking piece of spyware. Pioneered by tech-wunderkind Cy Baxter, FUSION can track anyone wherever they are on earth. But does it work?
ONE CHANCE TO ESCAPE
Each participant is given two hours to 'Go Zero' – to go off-grid and disappear - and then thirty days to elude the highly sophisticated Capture Teams sent to find them. Any Zero that beats FUSION will receive $3million in cash. If Cy's system prevails, he wins a $90 billion-dollar contract with the CIA to develop FUSION and revolutionize surveillance forever.
ZERO ALTERNATIVES
For contestant Kaitlyn Day, the stakes are far higher than money, and her reasons for entering the test more personal than Cy could have ever imagined. Kaitlyn needs to win to get what she wants, and Cy will stop at nothing to realize his ambitions. They have no choice but to finish the game and when the timer hits zero, there will only be one winner…
Going Zero, Anthony McCarten
Technology based thrillers like GOING ZERO can, sometimes, make this reader wary. Very wary, as the "tech" is often so far off course it endangers teeth and the book's ability to stay in one piece. Not so in GOING ZERO - the tech here might be a tad ropey in places, but the application was so believable, and the potential outcome so engaging, I was happy to let it roll along at, it has to be said, a clipping pace.
Basically the idea is that there's a big, high-tech company, run by one of those wunderkind tech bro types - Cy Baxter, although in the background there's a team of people, and one woman in particular who keep the show on the road. The company has developed a ground-breaking bit of spyware that can allegedly track anyone, anywhere on earth, and to prove that it does what it says on the box, a sort of reality show / come contest has been devised. Contestants are chosen and pre-warned that there will be an announcement, which will come with no warning, when they will have two hours to "Go Zero" or disappear. Then if they can stay off-grid, hidden and untracked by the spyware for 30 days they will receive a prize of $3million, and Baxter stands to win a $90billion contract with the CIA which will revolutionise surveillance and government oversight of people forever more.
Only one of the contestants, Kaitlyn Day, has something a bit more than the cash prize on her mind, and she's as determined as Baxter to get what she wants. Which one of them will ultimately win this particular little battle is down to a whole bunch of very human interventions.
As mentioned, technology based thrillers like this are often overblown, plain wrong or just so far out that you need a map, torch and a lot of determination to stay with it. GOING ZERO is drenched in tech goings on, and a hefty amount of data protection violations (which lets face it ... is a bit of a myth these days with the poor systems and processes employed by way too many organisations. Sorry day job... I digress), but none of it is utterly implausible, and quite a bit scarily prescient. The human aspects - the foibles, failings, and egos involved also help to create a story here that's really quite gripping and hard to put down. The author is an Oscar-nominated screenwriter, and whilst the whole thing feels very much like it would work as a movie, more importantly, it worked on the page - as an engrossing reading experience.
It's nicely balanced between the techy and the human stuff, with jeopardy, determination, sheer stupidity, and some nice touches of humour and surprise, helped along by an excellent central female character who takes her "book person" identity and has a red hot go at sticking it to the tech bro. Something well worth cheering for...
Expectant
A killer targeting pregnant women.
A detective expecting her first baby…
The shocking murder of a heavily pregnant woman throws the New Zealand city of Dunedin into a tailspin, and the devastating crime feels uncomfortably close to home for Detective Sam Shephard as she counts down the days to her own maternity leave.
Confined to a desk job in the department, Sam must find the missing link between this brutal crime and a string of cases involving mothers and children in the past. As the pieces start to come together and the realisation dawns that the killer’s actions are escalating, drastic measures must be taken to prevent more tragedy.
For Sam, the case becomes personal, when it becomes increasingly clear that no one is safe and the clock is ticking…
Expectant, Vanda Symon
The 5th novel in the Sam Shepherd series set in Dunedin, New Zealand, EXPECTANT is the latest work from Vanda Symon, the author Val McDermid refers to as "New Zealand's modern Queen of Crime" (fiction one hastens to add).
Sam Shepherd is an experienced, tough, up for anything cop, currently confined to 'light duties' as she's about due to deliver her first baby and commence maternity leave. Which obviously makes the case of the murder of a heavily pregnant woman, and the missing baby snatched from her womb, a potentially uncomfortable undertaking for Shepherd. And for her higher-ups who flounder a bit trying to decide whether she should be allowed to be involved and to what extent. If you're new to this series you'll be forgiven for thinking you've wandered into an NZ based version of Fargo, but this is newish territory for Shepherd, although she's done a finely tuned professional and personal high-wire act before.
So it's no surprise that Shepherd finds a way to keep on this case, working from her desk, or sneaking out when she can grab a few moments, looking for similarities to other baby snatching cases when she eventually comes across a rare glimmer of hope. The whole team are all too aware, it's too late for Aleisha Newman, but if they can find her baby then that is at least something for her grieving family to cling to.
There's a bit going on in EXPECTANT, and not just the obvious emotional upheaval of the coincidence of Shepherd's own pregnancy, and a killer / kidnapper who targeted a pregnant woman. There's also the backstory of Shepherd's personal situation, her living arrangements, and the way she's handling her own approaching due date.
Notwithstanding the obvious parallels being drawn here, the baby and pregnancy mentions, the angst and personal stuff in general, all got way too much for this reader. Because the crime itself seemed to be constantly pushed into the background by it all, little things started to stand out: some unconvincing sequences of dialogue and a lot of personal stuff - her eating & drinking preferences (which to be fair have always been there) and the never-ending second guessing of life choices in particular.
I've always loved the Sam Shepherd series, and up until this novel have found them to be engrossing and involving, with the personal backstory of Shepherd engaging. But this time around, EXPECTANT didn't seem as engaging and balanced as the earlier novels in the series. It's potential to engage readers may come down to the connection you can develop with the characters, and the implications of the murder. The emotional element has always figured in this series, so, as always, the old adage applies. Your mileage may (will most definitely) vary.
Caged
A heart-wrenching story about Sam, a 14-year-old girl from a struggling homeless family, who is already involved in petty crime. She must face her own fears and her sense of what is right, to defy a dangerous drug criminal, and rescue starving dogs and their pups from an inhumane backyard breeder.
Katipo Joe: Wolf's Lair
Katipo Joe: Wolf’s Lair is the harrowing and thrilling story of Joseph St George (codename: Katipo) in Germany during World War II.
On the eve of the Nazi invasion of the Soviet Union, Adolf Hitler is preparing to move from Bavaria to the ‘Wolf’s Lair’, his top secret headquarters in East Prussia. Little does he know that among his entourage is a British spy, teenager Joseph ‘Katipo’ St George, playing the part of a keen Hitler Youth who has been chosen as Hitler’s successor.
Already under suspicion by German counterintelligence, Joe has been given a risky new task by his handlers at MI5: the assassination of Hitler before he can lead Germany to victory over Russia.
The attack is to take place on the Führersonderzug, Hitler’s Special Train, en route to the Wolf’s Lair. But a perilous night-time crawl on the outside and roof of the train, in an attempt to poison Hitler’s water supply, ends in failure, as does an air raid the following day.
With Hitler safely ensconced at his new headquarters, the invasion begins, and Joe sits horrified in the daily briefings as German troops blitz their way into Russia. Aided by Sofie, a German girl disillusioned with the Nazi regime, he embarks on an even more audacious assassination plot, a plan that is complicated when he discovers that his father – arrested three years earlier on Kristallnacht – is among the prisoners working as forced labourers at the complex.
With German counterintelligence closing in, Joe and Sofie must now try to help Joe’s father escape, while continuing their plans for a powerful bomb right in the heart of the Wolf’s Lair.
Nikolai's Quest
How do you move forward if you don’t know where you started?
Russia 1996
11-year-old Nikolai and his 9-year-old sister, Anna, have lived most of their lives in an orphanage, built inside a 300-year-old former monastery. Their city has changed its name from Leningrad back to St. Petersburg.
The teachers and other staff at the orphanage are always grumbling about ‘too much change.’ Some children are being adopted by people from New Zealand. Adoption seems like a good escape.
Then, just when Nikolai and Anna are on the brink of being chosen, a stranger tells Anna that she looks like her mother, but then disappears. Could it be that their birth parents are not really dead after all?
Mysterious incidents and a secret tunnel. Nikolai and Anna can’t solve the puzzle alone, but who can they really trust to help them?
Nor’East Swell
Eighteen-year-old Witi’s father is listed as having abandoned his family and that’s just how Witi sees it. But when he is on his surfboard, feeling the surge of the sea, he somehow feels close to him. He also knows his rock-star father was diagnosed as schizophrenic, and lately Witi has been wondering if it is something he could have inherited. He’s hearing things… and sometimes seeing things, and the pull to hit the surf is getting stronger. Alana, his girlfriend, is sticking close and his new Aussie friend, Jordy, is eager to come along, when they try to locate the source of energy that seems to be driving him. Meantime Cyclone Trudy is getting closer and closer.
El Flamingo
Winner of the Best Adult Fiction Book at the 2024 New Zealand Book Lovers Awards.
With no role in sight and nothing to lose, actor Lou Galloway leaves Los Angeles and heads to Mexico to drown his sorrows in cheap mezcal. But, after a round too many, he soon ends up at a grandiose wedding in the mansion of internationally wanted crime lord, Diego Flores, where Lou is mistaken for a rogue assassin known simply as El Flamingo. Before he can escape, he meets Maria-Carla, an enigmatic beauty with incredible perfume, and he inconveniently falls in love at first sight. When it becomes too late to turn back, Lou is swept into the dangerous world of Latin-American espionage, embarking on a journey that will take him from the desert fiestas of Mexico to the jungle-clad salsa bars of Colombia. To survive, Lou is forced to do the one thing he swore he would never do again-act.
However, as Lou assumes the identity of El Flamingo, he realizes that this may be what he was searching for all along. Maybe this was fate? Maybe this will be the role of his life!
El Flamingo, Nick Davies
Regardless of why struggling actor Lou Galloway upped sticks from Los Angeles landing in Mexico, going from attending yet another audition in which he didn't get the job to sitting around in bars with cheap mezcal and no demands, the last thing he expected was to end up at the wedding of the daughter of the infamous crime boss Diego Flores. The grand mansion, the fancy food, elaborate outfits, the drinks, the gorgeous wife Maria-Carla Flores, the pretence that he's El Flamingo. The real ruthless assassin, someone Galloway somehow got talking to in one of those bars, had an idea for an identity swap, that you could argue only seemed like a good idea with a load of cheap mezcal on board. Although, to be fair, Galloway has never believed the "not a great actor" tag applied to him. Just one chance is all he's ever wanted. His agent had obviously never thought far enough outside the box though, so why not a bit of a real-life opportunity.
Only of course it doesn't turn out that way, and therein lies a novel that pans out as part romp, part suspense thriller with a bit of romantic angst thrown in, a combination that's just silly enough (did I detect the slightest hint of tongue firmly impressed in cheek?) to really work well. The end result is a high-adrenaline charge around South America, on a high-stakes rollercoaster that really does, for once, live up to and exceed that description.
Needless to say EL FLAMINGO is great fun, full of energy and flair, based on a very original idea into the bargain. An idea that's very well executed, with a coincidence giving what is otherwise a slightly insane plot, heaps of believable credence if you're of a mind to care about such things. The characterisation is perfect - with Galloway a nice combination of an actor's self-belief and the man's self-doubt, with the attraction he feels for Maria-Carla fitting nicely into both sides of that psychological equation. Of course, it's all about an assassin's life which means there's heaps of action and lots of jeopardy - even before they try to make a run for another life, although to be honest, it wasn't hard to believe that Galloway would find a way to get out, get the girl, get that life, get away with, whatever it is that EL FLAMINGO is building to. And that's something well worth noting, both main characters in this book - Galloway and Maria-Carla aren't young, so what they can't do physically they make up for in smarts.
A bit "for the joy of the journey" / a bit "the destination is everything", EL FLAMINGO is one of those books that even a chronic "not seen the movie" type like me could see as a movie. One of those ones with a wise-cracking, slightly unconvinced by his own story, hero character that's just that bit scruffy, just that bit on the older side of the usual depiction. His female accomplice is of similar ilk - older, seen it all, sick of everybody else's bullshit.
Back to the book though - it was silly, it was good fun. The debut novel for author, Nick Davies, he's written travel stories before - based in places like Colombia and Mexico (the setting for this fictional work). Hopefully whilst he's sitting, sipping coffee in Latin America, he's imagining up more stories like EL FLAMINGO.
A Better Class of Criminal
A seemingly foolproof plan to make some quick money turns into a race for their lives…
It’s the mid-nineties and methamphetamine casts its shadow over the Californian city of Santa Lucía. Nathan, happy running a small marijuana grow operation with his two best friends, takes advantage of meth’s rise in popularity and makes a lucrative one-time deal.
Betrayed, beaten, and desperate…
But a devastating betrayal leaves him entangled with the city’s merciless crime boss. Risking everything, Nathan and his friends embark on a wild plan to steal millions of dollars’ worth of diamonds to settle the debt.
Caught in the crosshairs of corrupt cops, a relentless Russian henchman and his temptress partner, they face setbacks at every turn as they pursue the diamonds across the city.
As the death toll rises, can Nathan save them all before the real bad guys find them?
A Better Class of Criminal, Cristian Kelly
There's a quote on the blurb for this book which goes:
Guy Ritchie meets Elmore Leonard – this is a fast-paced humorous crime thriller with splashes of dark and sinister
Which is where I could leave this review because it sums it up perfectly.
Fast paced: A BETTER CLASS OF CRIMINAL belts along, mind you that's a word worth keeping in mind, there's belting violence aplenty here which comes at the reader like a battering ram.
Humorous: If you like dark, cynical, pointed and very "gangster" styled humour, then you could find yourself laughing away at what, with hindsight, was probably a bit inappropriate, but what the hell.
Crime: Oh there's stacks, piles, heaps of wildly out of control crime in this one. It's the mid-nineties and meth is getting popular. Which inspires the lads with a small, highly successful, and cunningly concealed marijuana grow operation to spread their wings. These idiots are convinced they'll make a one-time, highly lucrative deal and spend the rest of their lives surfing and living the high life. Never heard of a crime boss obviously. Never stopped for a moment to think pinching diamonds to solve the problem the first idiotic plan engendered could mean that a lot more dangerous people are pissed off with them.
Thriller: Delivers on all the required thriller elements and then some. You'll be sitting on the edge of your seats at times, you'll also be peeping through your fingers. There could be some yelling at yet another daft decision - despite all the well-meaning intent in the world.
Given the humour, the crime, the danger, the pace, A BETTER CLASS OF CRIMINAL also squeezes in the development of some really engaging, believable, and likeable blokes - even if you'd spend a lot of time rolling your eyes or glaring long and hard in their direction. But they work in the context of the well-meaning (if you squint at the illegal drug stuff) idiots who get themselves in just that bit too deep. The friendship between the main characters, and the general feeling of looking out for your mates, means that the reader is never dragged too deep into the dark. It's more of a series of glancing blows that should have battered some sense into these blokes well before, if it ever really does. You'll have to read it yourself to find that out.
Mami Suzuki: Private Eye
Beneath the sheen of its orderly streets and obedient populace, all is not well in the port city of Kobe. Business is as brisk as the Haru-ichiban spring breeze for Mami Suzuki, hotel clerk by day, private investigator by night.
Who's stealing from Japan's biggest pearl trader? Where's the master sushi chef and why are his knives missing? How did the tea ceremony teacher's brother really die? And what does an island of cats have to do with a pregnant Shinto shrine maiden?
From the Kobe wharfs to the rugged Japan Sea coast, the subtropics of Okinawa, and a remote island community in the Seto Inland Sea, each new adventure ends with a universal truth - that there are two sides to every story of misfortune.
Mami Suzuki: Private Eye, Simon Rowe
MAMI SUZUKI: PRIVATE EYE is a debut series of linked short stories by NZ born, Japan resident author, Simon Rowe. Mami Suzuki is a hotel clerk, and a part-time private investigator, running her slowly building sideline around the day job, and her mother and young daughter at home. Based in the port city of Kobe, all is not as orderly and calm as first impressions may seem, and when things are not going well, and discretion is required, it's rapidly becoming known that Mami Suzuki can provide the sort of discretion, and low profile, that her client's are looking for.
Whilst the cases she's called upon to solve seem to be quintessentially Japanese in nature - the theft of pearls from a very large pearl trading company; the missing knives of a master sushi chef; the tea ceremony teacher's brother dying and an island of cats and a pregnant Shinto shrine maiden, the methodology for solving these cases will be instantly recognisable to fans of detective fiction. Suzuki is from the observation, interaction and gentle art of persuasion end of the PI spectrum. Hers is not a world of stick poking, or causing reactions, she's careful, and very exact in her interactions with people. Not so at home however, where she relies on her mother to assist with childcare and friend and muse, Teizo for his counsel and assistance in some of her cases.
Whilst the stories do centre mostly around Suzuki herself, there is plenty of supporting cast character development provided. Suzuki's mother is a dab hand with the fast witty retort, and Teizo is invested with a solidness that sometimes go with wisdom and age, although his gentleness and teasing of Suzuki are just part of the hint of romantic longing the reader will get from this pairing.
Along with a great sense of place, there's some nice glimpses into Japanese food, culture and social norms - including the challenges of single parenthood. The stories are well structured, with a subtlety of approach that fits with the world they are describing. The cases themselves are all unrelated, apart from the characters of course, seemingly designed to provide the glimpses mentioned, without tipping over into a tourist / information pamphlet.
All in all, a very interesting debut, with intriguing atmosphere and a well developed cast of characters that points to heaps of potential for future outings.