All the Reviews

This 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

In 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

Right 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

I 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

A short, concise and absolutely fascinating take on a number of the well known plays of Shakespeare, in a series of essays:

• Shakespeare is hard, but so is life
• Hamlet: Dying as an art
• Othello: Inside out
• King Lear: Zero hour
• Macbeth: Back to the future

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

TRIGGER 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.

On 15 April 2024 Justice Michael Lee delivered his judgement in Lehrmann v Network 10. The case, which centred on proceedings brought by Bruce Lehrmann against journalist Lisa Wilkinson and Network 10 for her 2021 interview with Brittany Higgins, alleged that Wilkinson had defamed Lehrmann by accusing him of raping Higgins at Parliament House in 2019.

This ... Read review

Along 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

I'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

One 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:

An undeclared, unregulated, sometimes-criminal, sometimes-philanthropic gathering of friends, this activist collective

... Read review