All the Reviews

No Turning Back, Joanne Lees

The Falconio case held the attention of the entire country in 2001 right up to and beyond the successful prosecution of Bradley John Murdoch. Lees tells of her story in a somewhat detached manner, beginning from the early days in which she first met Peter back in England through to present day as she re-builds her life without her boyfriend and hopefully, with less media attention. Peter's body was never found, and is never likely to be considering the sheer size of outback Australia, a fact Lees acknowledges in her book. A prosecution was not the end and failing the occurrence of a ... Read Review

The Devil in Amber, Mark Gatiss

It's the 1920's and it falls to Lucifer Box to save the civilised world (or at least it seems so to him - and probably him alone!)  The threat is coming from many fronts - his own superiors are applying more than a little pressure for Box to retire quietly.  Meanwhile, somebody must get to the bottom of FAUST (Fellowship of Anglo-United States Trust) an Anglo-American fascist fraternity and its sinister leader, Olympus Mons.   The presence of Lucifer's sister Pandora in FAUST is just another inconvenience that simply must be dealt with.  When Box is assigned to kill a fence and ... Read Review

Mavis Levack, P.I., Marele Day

Personally I think I agree with Eddy - Mavis is a busybody.  She's also a bored housewife, living in a flat with her retired husband, desperate for something to break the monotony of life.  When Claudia Valentine drops in to peak through the curtains as part of her investigation in The Life and Crimes of Harry Lavender, Mavis is intrigued - and she's unstoppable.

This is a series of short stories all about Mavis and the way that she can manage to turn anything into an investigation - if the dead bodies aren't dropping at her feet - then she'll chase down your missing ... Read Review

Exit Music, Ian Rankin

There is a mandatory retirement age of 60 in the Scottish Police Force, so Rebus is finally on his way out.  Weird really that with all the suspensions, life threatening events and the number of times that he's annoyed Siobhan to the point of shooting him, it's age that's going to see Rebus move on.  At the very least you'd think something spectacular.  Depending on how Rankin feels about his creation, I guess he could equally have killed him off with a massive whiskey, beer and fish and chip induced heart attack.  But Rebus is alive at the end of Exit Music and this is his retirement ... Read Review

The Brush Off, Shane Maloney

The things a ministerial assistant must do. Murray Whelan's exact job title and the details of his expected duties have never been fully explained but they certainly call for a deft kind of versatility in adapting to all possible situations a Labor party man might find himself inserted into. In yet another show of party shuffling, Murray's boss Angelo Agnelli has picked up the Arts portfolio, and Agnelli's need to endear himself to a new brand of people has now become Murray's personal headache. With suitable gothic dramatism, a failed artist has chosen the first day of Agnelli's new ... Read Review

Eden, Dorothy Johnston

Sandra Mahoney and her partner Ivan are security consultants, so what she is doing poking around the death by natural causes of a well known politician seems to confuse Sandra as much as everybody else.  In EDEN, the third Sandra Mahoney series book by Dorothy Johnston, Sandra is home alone - Ivan and their daughter Katya are in Russia visiting his relations and it's summer in Canberra.  Sandra had originally planned to spend summer on the coast - with her son, but she's at a bit of a loose end when he heads off to Tasmania with his father, leaving her in hot, slightly dismal Canberra ... Read Review

The Heavens May Fall, Unity Dow (review by sunniefromoz)

The book is a series of vignettes set around a main story.  All the stories centre around women facing legal problems.  The author, Unity Dow, is Botswana’s first female High Court judge and has made a name for herself dealing with human rights issues, particularly in relation to women.  Botswana is a very young country still trying to come to terms with the modern world.  That is where the main interest in the book lies.  How to reconcile a modern British Justice system with old traditional ways and still achieve justice for women is what makes THE HEAVENS MAY FALL so interesting. ... Read Review

Mixed Fancies, Brenda Blethyn

In this age, where there appear to be more and more people obsessed with being "famous for being famous", and an unfortunate group who follow their every, underwhelming move, MIXED FANCIES arrived in my post box recently.

Brenda Blethyn is one of those actresses you undoubtedly have seen in something.... turning to the back of the book first it was rather surprising to see that so far she has appeared in around 27 movies, 32 TV shows (including Rumpole and Maigret for we mystery fans) and a similar number of theatre productions. Suddenly you realise that she's not overtly ... Read Review

Searching for the Beaumont Children, Alan J. Whitiker

Many Australian's of a "certain age" will have a distinct memory of the Beaumont Children case - either by remembering the events as they occurred, or dealing with the change in how our childhood lives were lived.  40 years on the Beaumont Children are still missing - what happened to them totally unknown.

When the 3 children seemingly vanished from Glenelg Beach the police had very little information to go on, and all these years later the story is no clearer. No bodies have ever been discovered, nor have the 3 children been found living elsewhere.  One of the major ... Read Review