Took a break over the first week in March so I'll backdate this post but it's not going live until Tuesday the 10th. So the reader need not think they are losing their minds - it's me.
#JustFinished
Dark Desert Road by Tim Ayliffe (where does the time go)
The Vanishing Place by Zoe Rankin (2026 Ngaio's submission list & another that's been languishing)
#CurrentlyReading
#NextUp
What You Don't Know by Sandi Wallace (overdue!)
Black Velvet and Vengeance by Deborah Challinor (library book so will have to jump the queue a bit)
The Girl from Sarajevo by Stef Harris (another from the 2026 Ngaio's list)
The Retired Assassins Guide to Country Gardening by Naomi Kuttner (2026 Ngaio's)
Bella Donna by Jill Johnson (2026 Ngaio's)
The Ledge by Christian White (because I can see it from where I'm sitting most days).
Parrot Heaven by Jessica Howland Kany (because I loved the first one - A Runner's Guide to Rakiura)
Three Reasons for Revenge by Dervla McTiernan
What Rhymes with Murder by Penny Tangey
Old Games
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.
But it quickly becomes clear that everyone who knew Perry is keeping his accountant despises Perry's widower; the sculptor of his statue is hiding something in her studio; his ex-doubles partner is a compulsive liar; and his mother is obsessed with preserving his legacy and her image at all costs.
Alice and Teddy will need to travel up and down Melbourne’s Mornington Peninsula – all while avoiding more than one person on their tail – to uncover the truth and keep the body count from rising. But will they and the people they love survive what they find?
The Vanishing Place
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.
She can't - or won't - speak to anyone. It's the town's sole policeman who recognises her face. She looks exactly like a local girl who disappeared twenty years ago. She has the same red hair. The same green eyes.
What horrors has she left behind in the bush? Who will come looking for her? And what secrets are about to come to light?
Dark Desert Road
A fugitive sister. A dangerous father. A terror cell hiding in plain sight.
Kit McCarthy hasn't seen her identical twin sister, Billie, in more than a decade.
The sisters don't see eye to eye, which is understandable, considering Kit's a police officer and Billie followed their violent father into a life of crime.
Kit is no angel. Burnt out by years working in child protection, she has been accused of using excessive force in the arrest of a violent drunk. Kit has just been ordered to take time off work when she gets a frantic message from Billie, telling her she has a young son and that somebody is trying to kill her.
And then Billie disappears.
Determined to find her estranged sister, Kit's only lead comes after visiting their father in prison. Malcolm McCarthy claims Billie married a former United States Marine and has been living with a group of sovereign citizens in the desert country of the New South Wales Riverina.
Kit's journey to find Billie takes her through shuttered towns destroyed by drought, where everybody owns guns, nobody talks to cops, and people get lost for a reason.
Out here a war is brewing between a ruthless bikie gang and a separatist community that is re-engaging with society in the most violent way.
Kit will risk everything to find her sister and the nephew she never knew she had.
What You Don't Know
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?
A prowler in Tess’s neighbourhood triggers trauma over her best friend’s unsolved death – and dread of history repeating. Tess does odd things she can’t remember, and Joe acts cagey. They each have secrets that converge with the abduction of a young local woman.
Who can they trust when they don’t trust each other, or themselves? With nobody and nowhere safe, can Tess stop what she doesn’t understand... or will somebody else die because of her?
Bang!
Perth, 1981.
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.
For fans of Snowtown, James Ellroy, and Underbelly, BANG! delivers brutal Australian noir where corrupt cops, motorcycle clubs, and a desperate young killer collide in 1980s Perth—Australia's most isolated city, with its own rules and its own justice.
But in a city where the Purple Circle controls everything from shadows, where motorcycle clubs enforce for the powerful, and where sin is managed—not outlawed—nothing is ever that simple.
Someone wanted her dead. The wrong man took the fall.
Rain washes away evidence. It doesn't wash away guilt.
The Girl from Sarajevo
THE GIRL FROM SARAJEVO
Young and beautiful immigrant Katia will do anything to become a novelist. When she encounters her neighbour, a once famous Croatian author, she embarks on an audacious plan to represent Dragan’s new novel as her own. Weaponising her sexuality, she enters into a cynical twisted affair with the aging wordsmith. But Dragan holds a dangerous secret that may destroy them both.
THE OTHER JASMINE
Mail order bride Wong Ji Li travelled all the way from Ningbo China to marry a wealthy man, only to find herself a virtual sex slave, imprisoned on a derelict farm. Her new husband Darryl is a giant man-child still under the thumb of his powerful mother. Wong Ji Li discovers she is not Darryl’s first victim. She must find the courage to escape her predicament or face the same fate as the other Jasmine.
The Retired Assassin's Guide to Country Gardening
Dante has come to the small coastal town of Te Kohe, New Zealand, for a fresh start in life. But he doesn't want to open a BnB, or save a charming bookshop, or start a romance with a single mother in need of rescuing.
He just wants to forget about his past career (which involved a lot of dead bodies) and have everyone leave him the heck alone. Unfortunately for Dante, life has other plans...
Bella Donna
SECRETS ARE THE DEADLIEST POISON
Eustacia Rose is done with murder cases. She's ready to settle down with her partner, Matilde, and focus on her work at the university. To live a normal life.
But then along comes a case she can't resist investigating - because this time, the murder victim was poisoned with hemlock, one of the plants stolen from Eustacia's illicit garden of poisonous plants. And Eustacia is not the only one desperate to retrieve her lost the beguiling trader of rare plants, Zsa Zsa, and rival university professor Hutchins are on the trail, too, not to mention the dangerous criminal gang determined to keep hold of the lethal plants.
The stakes are higher than ever for Eustacia. Because if she cannot save her plants in time, there will be more deaths - and this time, the blood will be on her hands . . .
The Ledge
When human remains are discovered in a forest, police are baffled, the locals are shocked and one group of old friends starts to panic. Their long-held secret is about to be uncovered.
It all began in 1999 when sixteen-year-old Aaron ran away from home, drawing his friends into an unforeseeable chain of events that no one escaped from unscathed.
In The Ledge, past and present run breathlessly parallel, leading to a cliff-hanger nobody will see coming. This is a mind-bending new novel from the master of the unexpected.
Parrot Heaven
BDTH! The Foveaux Fisherman Facebook page posts this acronym to advise Rakiura Stewart Islanders to ‘batten down the hatches’ before severe weather events.
New Zealand’s southernmost librarian Maudie Sanderson reckons this warning could be applied to her life in general these days.
Haunted by a parrot and falsely accused of soliciting d**k pics, Maudie navigates a minefield of rabbit holes and mental health crises as she struggles to be a fit and proper person in a pandemic-hungover world. Sidelined by buggered knees, the avid runner needs projects to maintain sanity.
Island life keeps her busy. Maudie is drawn into an axe cult, scraps with the preschool teacher, discusses The Epic of Gilgamesh in a jailhouse book club, and mis-manages a community astronomy course. When a shocking crime wreaks havoc on her family, she dons her deerstalker cap and dives into the investigation.
All the while, Maudie feels a growing kinship with the ancient desert king Gilgamesh, as the words from 5,000-year-old clay tablets guide her through life’s myriad of mysteries.
Three Reasons for Revenge
Alexis Turner walks into the police station to report an assault. By the end of the day, she is nowhere to be found.
Soon after she disappears, three identical packages arrive at three very different a respected psychologist's home, a socialite's mansion, and a struggling single father's run-down apartment. Inside, each gift is perfectly tailored to its recipient - and each will tear apart the life of its intended victim.
Detective Sergeant Judith Lee is smart and experienced, but this is no ordinary case. Someone with intimate knowledge of their targets is orchestrating these attacks. Someone who knows exactly how to hurt each victim where they're most vulnerable. And she's convinced that somehow, it connects back to Alexis Turner.
As she races to uncover the connection between three seemingly unrelated people, Judith discovers she's no longer just investigating the game - she's being forced to play.
What Rhymes With Murder?
When exhausted new mother Frida attends Baby Rhyme Time at the local library, she feels a sense of purpose that has been lacking in her anxious, apartment-bound, sleep-deprived life. But at the end of the session a piercing scream is heard, followed by the thump of a body, and the library becomes a crime scene.
Before long, Frida finds herself part of an unlikely group of sleuths investigating the murder. Between gossip and cups of magic at their local cafe, they are too busy having fun to realise how close they are to danger . . .
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