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Hell's Bells, Jill Johnson25/06/2025 - 3:21pmThe second novel in the Professor Eustacia Rose series, HELL'S BELLS is out, about and well worth reading. For those that haven't met up with this character before, her first outing was in the book DEVIL'S BREATH. The same elements are being explored again here, Rose's experience as a neurodivergent woman in a world not designed to be easy to navigate, full of personal interactions, a relationship that she really values, but doesn't know how to say it, and a return to work as a professor with students, and a research lab and all that ... Read Review |
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The Deadly Dispute, Amanda Hampson25/06/2025 - 2:39pmThe third book in The Tea Ladies Mystery Series, sees Hazel, Betty and Irene take on one of their most dangerous challenges yet, with a real threat to Hazel's life on more than one occasion, Betty finding herself naked in front of a lot of strangers, and Irene hoicking a Molotov Cocktail straight back to where it came from. All of which might come as a bit of a surprise, even to followers of this lovely series of books, because these three are tea ladies after all. I mean who tries to drown or truss up tea ladies and shove them in wardrobes. Or pitch Molotov Cocktails at ... Read Review |
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Eden, Mark Brandi25/06/2025 - 11:59amMark Brandi has always been a writer of great male characters, from Ben and Fab in his standout debut WIMMERA, to Jimmy in SOUTHERN AURORA, Anton and Steve in THE RIP and Jacob in THE OTHERS, they are very real people. He's also not afraid to portray these boys and men as sometimes victims, sometimes perpetrators, struggling, living difficult lives from difficult circumstances, often as a result of societal expectations and failures. As ... Read Review |
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The Devil's Flute Murders, Seishi Yokomizo24/06/2025 - 10:54amThis was a happenstance discovery in the libraries audio listing, which I jumped at the chance of listening to. The narrator, Akira Matsumoto, has a very easy to listen to voice, and to hear the correct pronunciation of the Japanese words an absolute pleasure and an education. Originally published in 1951, this story is set in post-war Tokyo, with the Tsubaki family in mourning for their patriarch, a brooding, troubled composer known as Viscount Tsubaki. As the family gather for a divination ceremony to conjure the spirit of the Viscount, another death befalls the ... Read Review |
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The Thrill of It, Mandy Beaumont23/06/2025 - 12:54pmWhilst THE THRILL OF IT is a work of fiction, it is, as explained in the Author's Note, inspired and informed by the real-life brutal slayings of six older women on Sydney's North Shore by a man who came to be known as the Granny Killer (and god knows that's such a disrespectful moniker it's hard to know where to start). There is also a clear reference to the murder of the well-known Sydney identity, Florence Broadhurst. The author goes onto explain:
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Gaslight, Femi Kayode18/06/2025 - 10:52amYears (sadly) ago now I read the first book by Femi Kayode, LIGHTSEEKERS, and loved it. Partly because it was very much a whydunnit and partly because the central character, acclaimed investigative psychologist, Philip Taiwo is such an interesting take on an investigator. Having lived most of his life in the US, he's now in Nigeria, with his family, reconnecting with his families origins, and, to be frank, looking for somewhere that everyone else looks like them. In GASLIGHT, that project is not going so well ... Read Review |
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A Shipwreck in Fiji, Nilima Rao16/06/2025 - 1:09pmThe second book in the historical series featuring Sergeant Akai Singh, A SHIPWRECK IN FIJI follows on from A DISAPPEARANCE IN FIJI. This series makes for particularly interesting reading if you're aware of the motivation behind the books, which Rao spells out in her author's notes. In this book she comments:
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Kataraina, Becky Manawatu10/06/2025 - 7:11pm
KATARAINA is the much anticipated follow up to the, frankly, gut-wrenching AUĒ, which at the time I reviewed it, and since then, whenever I return to the book I remember saying:
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Nemesis, Patricia Wolf05/06/2025 - 11:30amThe 4th book now in the DS Lucas Walker series, those who are new to it might need a tiny bit of background. Walker is with the Australian Federal Police, but it was on his personal home territory, in outback Australia where he first met Barbara (in book one to be precise), when she heads from her native Germany to the area to look for her missing sister. Long story short, her sister endured an horrific experience, but survived, there was the spark of something between Walker and Barbara, and their lives moved on. Having kept in touch since that time, it's NEMESIS now that brings them ... Read Review |
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Boney Creek, Paula Gleeson03/06/2025 - 12:16pmThe second novel from Australian writer Paula Gleeson, BONEY CREEK is set in the dying town of the same name, a hot, dusty, dry place that the world forgot about when the highway bypassed it. After a traumatic experience in the city, Abbie and Toby move there, the new owners of the town general store, service station and post office - the sort of combination one stop shop that's very familiar to country residents. Groceries, fuel, the mail, odds and ends, and in more modern times, a place to get a coffee and sometimes some hot food and baked goods made by the store owner ... Read Review |
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Dead Mile, Jo Furniss08/05/2025 - 1:14pmI borrowed a copy of this audio from the library recently on a whim. No idea what drew me to it, but boy am I glad I did. Two sitting listens aren't common in these parts but I was so enthralled by DEAD MILE, I ended up sneaking the earbuds in and pretending to be getting on with other things, glued to the story of a locked room mystery on an inescapable section of freeway (motorway in English parlance). Sergeant Belinda Kidd (unsurprisingly with the nickname of 'Billy') is on return from a career sabbatical in Australia, ready to resign from the police after a series of ... Read Review |
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Burning Mountain, Darcy Tindale28/04/2025 - 1:47pmFollowing on from the excellent debut THE FALL BETWEEN, author Darcy Tindale's BURNING MOUNTAIN shows absolutely no sign of the dreaded "second novel syndrome". The action here is as believable, and relevant to the place as in the earlier novel, Detective Rebecca Giles as hardworking as before, the team she works with as full of the small problems of life whilst also tackling a difficult job with dedication, and the past is allowed to leak into the current in a very apt, and sometimes personal manner. For those that ... Read Review |
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Unbury the Dead, Fiona Hardy22/04/2025 - 12:35pmMelbourne author Fiona Hardy has broken very different ground with her crime fiction debut Unbury the Dead. Full review at Newtown Review of Books: Unbury the Dead, Fiona Hardy
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Black Silk and Sympathy, Deborah Challinor10/04/2025 - 1:51pmIt often pays not to read the blurb of a novel - can't help thinking something that's based in the "fascinating world of Victorian funeral customs and featuring Sydney's first female undertaker", may not scream read me to your average crime fiction reader. If there is such a thing. Historical fiction author Deborah Challinor has created firstly a brilliant character in Tatty (Tatiana) Caldwell, and secondly a fascinating scenario which is packed with lively dialogue, a great supporting cast, and a clever and quite subtle plot with a central idea that's particularly ... Read Review |
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A Fly Under the Radar, William McCartney09/04/2025 - 11:28amThis book should have come with a warning - I mean a blurb that simply said 'Lawyers, drugs, deaths, and sneakiness, in New Zealand.' just doesn't cut it. It should have mentioned:
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Lyrebird, Jane Caro08/04/2025 - 2:56pmAccording to the author's notes at the end of the novel LYREBIRD, the idea for this story came on a walk in the bush one day, when Caro crossed paths with a lyrebird. Having previously lived in an area where the sounds heard never quite seemed to match what was going on around us, it's not that difficult to picture the scenario where a lyrebird is filmed mimicking the sounds of a woman screaming in terror, begging for her life. It's also very easy to image the shock that would be for anybody, let along a young, hung over PHD student, out in the bush studying birds. All on her own, having earlier heard unidentifiable noises nearby, the shock, surprise and fright would be astounding. The sounds of that call would go on to haunt Jessica Weston for years to come.Read Review |
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Miss Caroline Bingley Private Detective, Kelly Gardiner & Sharmini Kumar02/04/2025 - 8:46pmFans of Jane Austen are going to feel right at home with Miss Caroline Bingley for a lot of reasons - the style of this novel fits right into the period, the central characters are reimagined versions of those straight out of Pride and Prejudice, and the sense of place and time is strong. Granted Miss Bingley and her dear friend Georgiana are considerably more ... what's the word .. active, maybe freer than the original version. Granted also it's been a long time since I read Pride and Prejudice and I'm no Janeite (if that's the right word). Set a couple of years after ... Read Review |
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Skull River, Pip Fioretti24/03/2025 - 1:08pmMounted Trooper Augustus Hawkins was introduced to readers in Fioretti's first novel, BONE LANDS. Returned from active service in the Boer War, he's scarred physically and mentally, tortured by what happened in combat, damaged again by the love he found in the first novel having been cruelly torn away from him by a snobby family and society's expectations about class and more pointedly, money. SKULL RIVER finds him transferred to a new post in the small, fading gold town of Colley in New South Wales. A day's ride from Bathurst, you'd think there wasn't going to be much to ... Read Review |
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Purgatory, Robert M. Smith20/03/2025 - 4:36pmOriginally published in 2022, this is a series that slipped past me, but something drew my attention to the setting mostly, and after this last awful summer, reading about Mallee towns in the heat sounded like a fictional pursuit that might distract from the reality outside the door. In this series, Greg Bowker is a young senior constable who got himself in a bit of bother in Ballarat, and was transferred to a one-officer station in Manangatang, town that is still going despite all declarations of the imminent death. In an interesting twist the author was raised on a ... Read Review |
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Rural Dreams, Margaret Hickey18/03/2025 - 4:39pmThis is a small collection of short stories, fictional, about life in the Australian country. It's a combination of stories about families, individuals, farms and small towns.Read Review |