Book Review

Hell's Bells, Jill Johnson

25/06/2025 - 3:21pm

The 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

The Deadly Dispute, Amanda Hampson

25/06/2025 - 2:39pm

The 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

Eden, Mark Brandi

25/06/2025 - 11:59am

Mark 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

The Devil's Flute Murders, Seishi Yokomizo

24/06/2025 - 10:54am

This 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

The Thrill of It, Mandy Beaumont

23/06/2025 - 12:54pm

Whilst 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:

My hope is that THE THRILL OF IT can in some way restore agency and power to these older women, whose names

... Read Review

Gaslight, Femi Kayode

18/06/2025 - 10:52am

Years (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

A Shipwreck in Fiji, Nilima Rao

16/06/2025 - 1:09pm

The 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:

The short answer to 'why set a book in Fiji' is to explore my heritage. But who wants a short answer? .... I was born in Fiji of Indian descent, and my family moved to Australia when I was three. Growing up

... Read Review

Kataraina, Becky Manawatu

10/06/2025 - 7:11pm

Our ancestor once lived close to the
house where he was shot. She was at
the river when a man approached
her and offered her some peaches
from a can, but then he attacked her.
 

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:

Understanding the

... Read Review

Nemesis, Patricia Wolf

05/06/2025 - 11:30am

The 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

Boney Creek, Paula Gleeson

03/06/2025 - 12:16pm

The 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

Dead Mile, Jo Furniss

08/05/2025 - 1:14pm

I 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

Burning Mountain, Darcy Tindale

28/04/2025 - 1:47pm

Following 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

Unbury the Dead, Fiona Hardy

22/04/2025 - 12:35pm

Melbourne 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 

 

 Read Review

Black Silk and Sympathy, Deborah Challinor

10/04/2025 - 1:51pm

It 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

A Fly Under the Radar, William McCartney

09/04/2025 - 11:28am

This 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:

  • Shouldn't be read in public unless you want people to think you're having a breakdown;
  • Definitely shouldn't be read if you're planning a serious and earnest career in the law;
  • Might not necessarily reflect the reality of the practice of law in New Zealand (that one's more of fervent hope than a warning);
  • ... Read Review

Lyrebird, Jane Caro

08/04/2025 - 2:56pm

According 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

Miss Caroline Bingley Private Detective, Kelly Gardiner & Sharmini Kumar

02/04/2025 - 8:46pm

Fans 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

Skull River, Pip Fioretti

24/03/2025 - 1:08pm

Mounted 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

Purgatory, Robert M. Smith

20/03/2025 - 4:36pm

Originally 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

Rural Dreams, Margaret Hickey

18/03/2025 - 4:39pm

This 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

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