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An Ethical Guide to Murder, Jenny MorrisSomewhere between fantasy, science fiction and crime fiction, with a nod to family tragedy, chicklit style girls out of control, the ups and downs of long term friendships, romance and relationship tensions, there will need to be a sub-category that AN ETHICAL GUIDE TO MURDER will slot into. In other words, which shelf this one goes onto is going to be a creative choice, because it's nothing if not very different. The story revolves around Thea, and her secret power of life and death. Just by touching someone she can tell how long they have to live. She can also transfer ... Read Review |
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A Case of Matricide, Graeme Macrae BurnetIn a sign of just how ridiculously behind and disorganised I've been of late, A CASE OF MATRICIDE has been lurking around here for months now, and it's the third novel in a series that I'd failed to even start. Now I'm reading it back to front because this was such a fascinating read. Fascinating partly because Burnet has a writing style that elegantly combines wry humour with detailed observational elements that never become overblown, blurring boundaries between characters and the reader, all whilst having a good rummage around in the darkest recesses of people's minds ... Read Review |
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The Hitchhiker, Gabriel BergmoserFans of the Bee Gees might find themselves with psychological issues post reading or listening to THE HITCHHIKER. I'm not sure I'll hear the particular track that's on high rotation in the car at the centre of much of the action here without a slight twitch ever again to be honest. A master of psychological suspense Bergmoser's gone all out with THE HITCHHIKER, creating a central character who starts off reasonably benign, rapidly being revealed as the sort of sick, depraved, just flat out creepy, awful bloke that you kind of know is probably out there, but could really ... Read Review |
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A Killer Harvest, Paul CleaveThis review is ridiculously and embarrassingly overdue. The notes for it have been sitting in my queue for way too long, especially as I have always been sorely tempted to gobble read anything by this author as soon as I can get my hands on it. He's one of those authors that knows how to take an unlikely, unrealistic scenario and make it so matter of fact, whilst scaring the living daylights out of the reader, that the only doubt you may have is just before you start reading. My advice as always? Park the doubt. Read all his books. In A KILLER HARVEST, young Joshua is ... Read Review |
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Macca, Mackenzie Arnold & Emma KempI'm not at all ashamed to admit that I'm a recent convert to football via the Matilda's. Fair to say men's football left me vaguely disinterested even though I did try to watch a World Cup once. But the Matilda's - well they were a revelation.Read Review |
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Murder in Punch Lane, Jane SullivanIn Melbourne, in 1868, theatre star Marie St Denis dies in the arms of her best friend, up and coming actress, Lola Sanchez. The accepted cause of death is suicide by laudanum overdose, something that Sanchez refuses to believe. Why would her brilliant, much admired, accomplished dear friend do such a thing? But then why would anyone kill St Denis?Read Review |
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The Little Sparrow Murders, Seishi YokomizoI've read all but one of this series, all out of order, and in different formats - this time THE LITTLE SPARROW MURDERS was available as an audio book via the local library which worked out brilliantly. The narrator (Akira Matsumoto) was extremely easy to listen to, used a non-grating number of voices for the characters, and gave me a lesson on pronunciation that I really appreciated. The story here is based around Yokomizo's main character, Kosuke Kindaichi, a private detective frequently referred to as "scruffy" being invited to a remote mountain village to look, with ... Read Review |
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Brainstorm, Richard ScolyerRight now, given what Richard Scolyer is dealing with health and personal wise, the fact that any book has been written is amazing (he worked with a writer to get this out). That he felt he was able to tell anything of his story, a successful and revolutionary medical career at the Melanoma Institute of Australia, and his life with a much loved family, and how that was affected by a devastating diagnosis of glioblastoma, an incurable brain cancer, is selfless and important. I so deeply admire the effort and brilliance of his work, and his willingness to be open about the ... Read Review |
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Old Rage, Sheila HancockI love Sheila Hancock's view of the world. She comes across as acerbic, pointed, and not particularly interested in cutting fools any slack. She also is clearly a compassionate, loving woman who has lead a life. I'm not sure I go along with the idea that this is a book of overwhelming rage, as I have seen some reviews suggest. She just seems mightily pissed off with a lot of aspects of life, and being an ageing (but nowhere near her) woman myself, I have a lot of sympathy with the things that make you furious, although I don't think I'm quite at the stage of shouting at the TV yet, and there's no pigeons in this neighbourhood.Read Review |
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The Battle of the Generals, Roland PerryI saw this reviewed somewhere, and now can't find where. Which is a right pain because it was that work that tweaked my interest. Don't read enough history, and my knowledge of circumstances around World War II in particular, is sketchy to say the least. Not so sketchy as to be unaware of Douglas MacArthur and his "I will return" line. I'd also been aware of Thomas Blamey and his role in the defence of Australia, and his sidelining. I had no idea that both of them had extremely questionable personal morals. Okay so that's too polite. Macarthur's morals would make him a ... Read Review |
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Shakespeare is Hard, But So is Life, Fintan O'TooleA short, concise and absolutely fascinating take on a number of the well known plays of Shakespeare, in a series of essays:
Free of academic speak, jargon and grand gestures, what this precise and very informative collection does is provide fresh insights into the power plays within the plays themselves. Some ... Read Review |
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Gunnawah, Ronni SaltRonni Salt’s debut is historical crime fiction at its best, with a strong sense of place and time and wonderful characters at its core. Full review at Newtown Review of BooksRead Review |
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He Went Back for His Hat, Justice Michael LeeTRIGGER WARNING - this book discusses a civil case that revolved around an alleged rape. There are some challenging aspects to the observations and testimony recorded here.
This ... Read Review |
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We Solve Murders, Richard OsmanFirst in a new series from The Thursday Murder Club author Richard Osman, WE SOLVE MURDERS uses many of the stylings and touches that make all his books very readable. WE SOLVE MURDERS features two new main characters. Amy Wheeler is a close protection agent, working for a unique security company Maximum Impact Solutions, that, it turns out, is having issues of its own. Her father-in-law, Steve Wheeler, is a retired police officer doing the odd bit of local investigation work - missing pets and the like. He's a regular at the local pub quiz, loves his cat ... Read Review |
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Karla's Choice, Nick HarkawayAlong with a lot of other readers around the same age, I started out reading Espionage thrillers with John le Carré's George Smiley, Robert Ludlum's Jason Bourne, Ian Fleming's James Bond and the novels of Frederick Forsyth and Len Deighton. George Smiley was always a particular favourite, possibly because the tone and feeling of Le Carré's books was always pared back, steeped in foreboding, doubt and regret, which meant KARLA'S CHOICE was always going to be "an undertaking". I can't imagine how it would feel to be the son who takes on his father's most famous work, although the ... Read Review |
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A Line to Kill, Anthony HorowitzThe third book in the Hawthorne & Horowitz series (it's meta - you can find out more about all of that at reviews of THE WORD IS MURDER and THE SENTENCE IS DEATH), sees Horowitz convinced (slightly) that he's got the upperhand on his colleague, and subject of the books he's currently writing, Daniel Hawthorne. They are guests at a literary festival, and if there's one thing that Anthony Horowitz knows a lot more about than Hawthorne, it's literary festivals. ... Read Review |
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How To Send A Message, Caimh McDonnellI'm really only slightly obsessed with this author's work. Slightly in that just about everything he has written now is automatically high on the read / listen list. Sometimes, into every life, a bloody good laugh, a bit of craic, some distraction from the general godawfulness of everything around is required, and right now, for my ears and eyes, that's Bunny McGarry (he features in two of this collection of seven short stories) and anything else that's offered up. Is this a fun collection - yes it is. Have I learned anything about human nature ... Read Review |
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The Mother Paul Series, June WrightMy review of RESERVATION FOR MURDER, FACULTY OF MURDER and MAKE-UP FOR MURDER has been posted: June Wright has faded from view, but in 1948 her novel Murder in the Telephone Exchange outstripped sales of Agatha Christie in Australia. Full Review at Newtown Review of Books |
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Birnam Wood, Eleanor CattonOne of the very best things about reading the entrants in the 2024 Ngaio Marsh Awards is just how varied a bunch of books they were. BIRNAM WOOD is a eco-thriller, set on New Zealand's South Island, serving up a hefty dose of challenges for the reader to be going on with. The story is built around members of the Birnam Wood "collective" - a group involved in eco-activism through guerrilla gardening. As the blurb puts it:
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String Theory, Bing TurkbySTRING THEORY is the 2nd in the Guitar Store Mysteries, and the first I've read. Which I think might have been a bit of a mistake. This worked, in that it was fun, a bit silly, and a bit of giggle in places, although it did take me a while to figure out who was who and how it all fitted together. Maybe the first book, DEAD MAN'S AXE will fill in those gaps when I get to it on "MtTBR that can be seen from the moon....". Set, unsurprisingly, in and around Dana Osborne's guitar store, where she would be happy just hanging out, talking music with an eclectic range of ... Read Review |