All the Reviews

It's been way. too. long. since the last Emily Tempest novel from Adrian Hyland was published. Been way too long since anything from Adrian Hyland was published, so I will admit to some serious stack reshuffling when CANTICLE CREEK arrived. Not a shred of disappointment about the decision to sit down and read the first novel featuring NT Police Officer Jesse Redpath. (I say first novel with some determination - this is a series in the making if there ever was one).

Jesse Redpath is a cop in the small NT community around Kulara, and she was more than prepared to stick her ... Read review

In THE GREAT DIVIDE, L.J.M. Owen has set what seems to be the first of an intended new series in the atmospheric location of a small Tasmanian town with plenty of past secrets just waiting to come back to haunt new and old residents alike.

Atmosphere is the word when it comes to describing THE GREAT DIVIDE. From deep fog, to mysterious old buildings, and damp and sinister feeling vineyards, there is much in this novel that's going to hook a reader's interest. Add the new cop in town, mainlander Detective Jake Hunter, an old family with plenty of inter-generational tension, ... Read review

SPRIGS by Brannavan Gnanalingam is a searing expose of white, male privilege and the brazen underpinning of enablement and support that seemingly encourages, and if required, covers-up the actions of young men. Trigger Warning: It's about a gang rape, young men and an even younger victim. It's about racism, difference, toxic masculinity and cover up culture. It's a timely novel, it won the Ngaio Marsh Award for Best Crime Novel in 2021 and it is exactly the sort of book that is required right now.

Written by a male author, it's about the damage that boys, young men - in ... Read review

Nat now lives a picture perfect life - an artist, an instagram influencer, she has a husband, a baby and staff. She's also back living in the same place she grew up, friends with some of the girls at school who bullied and tormented her when they were younger, seemingly living the perfect life. Until members of her friend group start to die, Chrissy Summers returns to town, and blame for the deaths increasingly starts to focus on her.

Now I will admit that Nat and all of her friends were mightily annoying to this reader. But then I don't get Instagram influencing, I don't ... Read review

The winner of the 2021 Ngaio Marsh Award for Younger Readers, KATIPO JOE is an almost pitch perfect vehicle for older kids (12+) to get some insights into the reality of war, and how identity can come with consequences, and loyalty is hard.

A 12 year old New Zealand boy living in Berlin in 1938, Joe's parents are diplomats, and they all watch as the Nazi's rise in power, and the mistreatment of local Jews escalates. Discovering his parents are actually spies causes a big enough shock in Joe's world, but when is father is arrested by the Gestapo, Joe and his mother manage ... Read review

When author Jonathan Macpherson sent me an ebook copy of OUTBACK CREED for review, it slipped a little down the queue as some pressing judging responsibilities got in the road. Having subsequently realised it was somewhere between a novella and novel in size, it snuck back in, as a palate cleanser / head clearing read was required.

Action packed, with a interesting idea at the core, OUTBACK CREED is well worth reading if you're a fan of action packed thrillers. The basic idea is that three lawyers, after a meeting in a small outback town, head out to a remote spot in the ... Read review

In the middle of reading this novel an Antiques Roadshow episode popped up that included an old tally stick, bought in by an elderly gentleman who had kept it in a drawer for many years. Very useful and timely to be reminded that they were used as an aid to memory, often for financial or legal transactions, to keep track of debts. In the case of the novel THE TALLY STICK, one is found, at the same time as the remains of the eldest Chamberlain child, discovered in a remote part of New Zealand's West Coast. The entire Chamberlain family had arrived in New Zealand from Britain, and ... Read review

THE SNOW THIEF is set in Tibet, with a Chinese Detective as it's central character, fighting her bosses for permission to look into the mysterious deaths of multiple little boys. It's a story of murder, a serial killer, stalking the entire country, obviously killing to a pattern, but it's also the story of the tensions between Tibet and China and the way that every step could be your last if you offend the wrong people.

Told with what feels like great authority, Carver has created central characters in this novel that draw you into the story, and the place deeply and ... Read review

Magical realism in a disturbing political thriller, told in a confessional first person voice, SHAKTI is not the sort of novel that you'd normally expect to show up in the list for a crime fiction award, but if the Ngaio Marsh Award has shown me anything over recent years it's to expect the unexpected, and go with it.

A story of women, their courage, their struggles and secrets, set against a backdrop of right-wing, nationalist politics, this is about three Indian women who find themselves dealing with a great gift, and the consequences of that. What if the greatest gift ... Read review