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Dark Mirror, Barry Maitland09/06/2009 - 11:55amFans of Barry Maitland's Brock & Kolla series have had a wait on their hands. The last book - Spider Trap - was released in 2006, with a standalone book Bright Air in 2007. Leaving aside the eagerness with which we fans wait for the next book in a favourite series, there's also the slight nagging doubt always - has the wait been worth it? In DARK MIRROR Kathy's been promoted and Brock seems to being forced away from front-line policing, more into administration. They are called into the investigation of the death of a beautiful young woman who dies horribly in the ... Read Review |
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Curse of the Pogo Stick, Colin Cotterill02/06/2009 - 4:54pmAnybody who hasn't indulged in the Dr Siri series by Colin Cotterill could be forgiven for wondering what on earth is going on with CURSE OF THE POGO STICK. Booby-trapped corpses and reluctant coroners might be reasonably expected in crime fiction, but Hmong villagers needing exorcism by a thousand-year-old shaman who shares the aforementioned coroner's body? Understandably a "What the" moment. Whilst the spiritual (supernatural) component of CURSE OF THE POGO STICK is considerably stronger than the earlier books, the series has been building the unlikely scenario of ... Read Review |
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Splinter, Michael MacConnell02/06/2009 - 3:07pmOne of the best things about a good thriller is when they present a scenario that could just possibly happen. The reader of SPLINTER has no trouble at all believing in the possibility of the kidnapping of the child of Hollywood celebrities; they can join in the initial rush of sympathy for parents who have been put in an impossible situation, and as the fictional public sympathy starts to splinter into suspicion, the reader will be there along for the ride. The problem with this kidnapping is that Milo is found dead within his parents own home - in the basement, ... Read Review |
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Storm Peak, John A. Flanagan25/05/2009 - 2:51pmThere are never enough new crime fiction writers and/or novels in Australia every year (okay so I'm greedy!), but there are certainly never enough quite as good as STORM PEAK which is John A Flanagan's first crime fiction novel, and I'm certainly cheering for more. STORM PEAK is set in Colorado in the US, and I hope a reader would be hard-pressed to pick that the setting isn't the author's own, except perhaps for the use of the much beloved u (in spelling). Setting away from the author's home base can sometimes not work - little inaccuracies in dialect and/or terminology ... Read Review |
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A Decent Ransom, Ivana Hruba21/05/2009 - 1:03pmA DECENT RANSOM is a story of a kidnapping gone right (according to the tag on the book). More than that it's a story about a bit of a misfit that somehow ends up okay, despite all the odds being stacked against him. The storyline is pretty simple to start off with - two young (as is revealed) half-brothers, each a misfit in his own right, coming from a totally dysfunctional background, live in the dire circumstances that their mother deserted them in. The elder comes up with a classic get-rich quick scheme, the younger brother Phoebus is the one who deals with the ... Read Review |
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A Year to Learn a Woman, Paddy Richardson20/05/2009 - 3:12pmA YEAR TO LEARN A WOMAN is the second novel and first crime fiction offering from New Zealand writer Paddy Richardson. Travis Crill is a serial rapist - convicted and jailed for a series of bizarre attacks. Claire Wright is a freelance journalist, living alone with her young daughter after the sudden death of her older husband. When Claire is first contacted to see if she would be interested in writing the story of Crill for a very much needed large sum of money, she finds she can quickly overcome her initial reluctance to look closely at a man like him. But understanding Crill's ... Read Review |
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African Psycho, Alain Mabanckou19/05/2009 - 12:57pmWhen AFRICAN PSYCHO by Alain Mabanckou arrived in my book stack, I really wasn't sure what to expect. I've finished it now and I'm still not sure what I got. But I do remember it! Gregoire is a neglected child - an ugly child - an anonymous child - abandoned by his parents - he's raised in an increasingly haphazard manner really by himself mostly. He vows he will be different. He will be remembered. He vows to escape his humdrum reality and commit a spectacular murder. Just like his idol - the serial killer Angoualima. Angoualima is Gregoire's guide, his mentor, ... Read Review |
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Borderlands, Brian McGilloway (review by Sunnie Gill)14/05/2009 - 12:35pmA well written police procedural is one of the reasons I'm so addicted to crime fiction. A good police procedural will introduce you to the police,take you by the land and lead you through their investigation as they unearth clues by interviewing people, sifting the evidence and following leads. There will be a careful balance of detecting and learning about the lives of the detectives. If the author has done the job properly s/he doesn't deliberately hold back clues or have the the detectives catch the culprit in the act, just two pages before the end. In his first novel ... Read Review |
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The Seduction of Power, Sergio Scasioli06/05/2009 - 2:20pmTHE SEDUCTION OF POWER is Melbourne based author Sergio Scasioli's first book. According to an article in his local newspaper, it was inspired by a passion to write, spurred on by a chance meeting with an inspirational character. The book is the first in a planned trilogy, described as an "epic tale of the Calabrian Mafia in Australia". Given that it is a debut book, and the first in this trilogy it became important to keep that in mind when reading this opening instalment. THE SEDUCTION OF POWER is best described as the story of one man - Paolo Valente - ... Read Review |
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Beautiful Death, Fiona McIntosh29/04/2009 - 3:17pmNow a little housekeeping before we go too far. Beautiful Death is the second DCI Jack Hawksworth book, published under the author's real name of Fiona McIntosh. The first, Bye Bye Baby, was published under the pseudonym Lauren Crow. Fiona is a well known Fantasy writer in Australia, and these two books are her first foray into crime fiction. DCI Jack Hawksworth has a good working relationship with his team - they are a close group who have worked together on dreadful cases before. The team, and his superiors are more than used to Jack getting the personal and the ... Read Review |
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The Coroner, M.R. Hall (review by sunniefromoz)24/04/2009 - 1:45pmHow do you find books to read? For many, it’s the tried and true. Authors you’ve enjoyed in the past. For those of us active in online reading groups, new authors are frequently discovered by word of mouth. It isn’t very often that a new author comes my way about whom I know nothing at all. Usually if they are good, there is a buzz about them. People start talking about the book they’ve just read and others pick up on it. I hadn’t heard a word about M.R. Hall’s, THE CORONER so I had no real expectations that this was anything other than just another run-of-the-mill crime novel. You ... Read Review |
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Still Waters, Judith Cutler23/04/2009 - 1:31pmThe second DCS Fran Harmon book I've read, there is such a lot that that you'd think would make these books unlikeable. Fran is almost too cheerful and nice, she's the sort of person that it's not hard to fantasise about as a victim of brutal crime. Mind you, she's also refreshingly not like your stereotypical angst ridden, difficult boss - she actively supports and encourages her subordinates, both in a day to day work sense, and as part of her ongoing police policy work. She's got her own boss problems though, and she handles them (mostly) with aplomb. There's a big concentration ... Read Review |
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Deep Water, Peter Corris22/04/2009 - 1:19pmCliff's back - Lazarus with a quadruple bypass no less. He's resigned to never getting his licence back and his agency is now in the hands of his daughter Megan and her PI boyfriend. He still misses Lily, and he's still driving "a" trusty Falcon, and he's no longer so pressed for money. More importantly, he's lucky to be alive. Recovering from a quadruple bypass has it's own challenges - the exercise requirements, the pills that have to be taken for the rest of your life, the limitations that the awareness of mortality places on you, and there are glimpses ... Read Review |
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The Shadow Walker, Michael Walters19/04/2009 - 3:55pmLess of a full review, and more of a note about the first book in this (now) 3 book series set in Mongolia. THE SHADOW WALKER is the first book, which I read recently, having already read the 2nd in the series (the third is here in the queue). A first book in a series is often slighty problematic and I have to say having read the 2nd book (The Adversary) which I loved, I was willing to cut this first book a lot more slack than perhaps ... Read Review |
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Off Track, Clare Curzon17/04/2009 - 12:39pmClare Curzon began writing in the 1960s and has published over forty novels under a variety of pseudonyms, with twenty or so of these in the Superintendent Mike Yeadings series. OFF TRACK is the first time I've come across this series. It has been a long while since I struggled for months to finish a book, but reading OFF TRACK turned out to be a very disconcerting experience. The basic plot is that Lee Barber, a train driver, leads a perfectly normal life until one night he overshoots a station and a passenger reports him. When a drunk Lee then comes across the man he ... Read Review |
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Glasgow Kiss, Alex Gray16/04/2009 - 1:42pmSometimes you have to wonder if the blurbs publishers put on the front of the book are more of a hindrance than a help. In the case of Alex Gray's 6th book - they've set an unbelievably high expectation with 'Brings Glasgow to life in the same way Ian Rankin evokes Edinburgh'. Quite a high mark to set, and one I have to say I didn't think was reached with this particular book. DCI William Lorimer has been called in to investigate the disappearance of a little girl. Snatched by a woman in a car from just outside her home, everyone fears the worst as the days drag on with ... Read Review |
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The Iron Heart, Marshall Browne15/04/2009 - 4:36pmBerlin in 1939 is not an easy place to be if you're not a supporter of Hitler and the Nazi Party. Being the Chief Auditor in the Reichsbank, right at the centre of the Party's finances would always be a tricky assignment, but if you're only there to try to stop the advance of the Third Reich it's an even more difficult place to be. Franz Schmidt isn't a typical hero, he's quiet, a small self-contained man, who has drawn on incredible internal resolve in his opposition to the direction that Germany is being driven in. He has divorced his wife (a matter of self- ... Read Review |
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Crooked, Camilla Nelson14/04/2009 - 3:32pmIt's interesting that Camilla Nelson's first book (Perverse Acts) is a political satire, because CROOKED, her second book, is a crime novel with a distinctly political background. Set in 1960's Sydney, the book, whilst fictional, involves a number of well-known political identities by name, and one would assume less directly, a number of real-life criminal identities and events. CROOKED is the story of a series of violent killings, in the underworld of Sydney, culminating in the execution style killing of one particular character, whose little black book listing the ... Read Review |
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Blood Moon, Garry Disher07/04/2009 - 3:08pmThe Hal Challis series is really growing into something particularly interesting, as well as entertaining. There's a distinct edge to this story, there are obviously some issues which the author wants to talk about, and he's cleverly worked a number of elements of social observation and commentary into what is, overall, a good solid police procedural. Hal and Ellen's romantic interest at the end of the last book has developed into a live-in relationship. Which has a number of complications - not just that they work together and that Hal is Ellen's boss. Ellen's divorce ... Read Review |
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Echoes from the Dead, Johan Theorin06/04/2009 - 3:56pmThis book is just classic Swedish / Scandinavian crime fiction. Slow, involved, intricate, revealing and complex, ECHOES FROM THE DEAD concentrates very much on Julia, and her father, and their slow and careful repairing of a relationship which was torn apart at the time that Julia's son disappeared. Julia hasn't coped at all since her son's disappearance and she's at a particularly low ebb in life when her father calls her back to the small, closed in island on which the boy disappeared. Julia's father, Gerlof, lives in a home now, but he's still connected with the ... Read Review |