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Body Count, PD Martin04/09/2007 - 11:46amFrom the book cover: "When a young woman's mutilated body is found in DC, Australian FBI profiler Sophie Anderson knows she's got real problems. She's 'seen' the victim before, raped and murdered in her dreams - and she knows this is just the beginning. With her fellow agents, Sophie delves into the mind of the killer, trying to predict his next move. Then another victim turns up and Sophie struggles to separate fact from fiction, reality from nightmare as she becomes more and more ensnared in the killer's mind. The body count is rising, the killer is moving closer and Sophie is ... Read Review |
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Broken Bodies, June Hampson03/09/2007 - 1:05pmBROKEN BODIES is a follow-up to the author's first book TRUST NOBODY so many of the characters and their back story come from that first novel. Perhaps this is part of the reason why BROKEN BODIES was a bit of a slog to read, as many characters appear rapidly in quick succession in the early part of the book, talking the patois of the English gangster, talking about each other - dead or alive, it wasn't always easy to distinguish - as if the reader was acutely aware of who everyone was and what had happened in the past. There was a little backfill as the story progressed but that ... Read Review |
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An Easeful Death, Felicity Young29/08/2007 - 5:20pmDS Stevie Hooper, recently seconded to the Serious Crime Squad in Perth, is working with her old friend DI Monty McGuire. When the naked, hairless body of a young woman is found, poised carefully outside a Bank in the main part of the city, sprayed totally with bronze paint there not only does not seem to be any reason for the murder, there are also no clues on the surveillance cameras because the murderer seems to have known enough to cover them, firstly when the body was placed there, and secondly when the props used to keep her in the bizarre pose as rigor-mortis set in are removed ... Read Review |
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The Dante Trap, Arnaud Delalande19/08/2007 - 1:35pmThe body of one of Venice's brightest young actors is found, crucified, his eyes gouged out and a line of verse carved into his chest. His is just the first death as a shadowy group stalk the rulers of Venice and their supporters. The murderer, known only as The Chimera, is the leader of this dangerous fanatical group - the Stiges or Firebirds - determined to kill one of the depraved, the gluttonous, the traitors to their cause - one for each of the nine Circles of Dante's Inferno. The Doge of Venice turns to Pietro Viravolta, a dashing young adventurer, best friend of ... Read Review |
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Shaved Fish, Susan Geason15/08/2007 - 3:03pmSyd Fish is a failed journalist, sacked political minder and start up private investigator on the "mean" streets of Sydney. Shaved Fish is a series of short stories which introduce the reader to the laconic, bumbling, accidental PI. There's a good touch of humour in these stories, although many of the resolutions to the mysteries are of the "fall out of the sky into his lap" type. Good, silly, filler in reading though.Read Review |
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Sharkbait, Susan Geason15/08/2007 - 2:23pmShark Bait is the 3rd Syd Fish book (and sadly the last), which has been sitting in my shelves for years now, being carefully rationed because there are so few of them. Syd Fish is an ex-political minder, turned Private Investigator - there is a touch of the Murray Whelan's and Cliff Hardy's about him no doubt about that. These books are light-hearted, funny and quick little books - the mystery is not the strongest point, the point is the entertainment - and there are some great quotes in this book - this gem probably sums up the style of the book the best: ... Read Review |
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Graphic, Shane Briant15/08/2007 - 1:53pmThere are a stack of books lurking in a corner in my lounge room that are from little / basically unknown Australian authors and I've been promising to catch up on my reading of them to myself for ages now. GRAPHIC was my most recent read from that pile and I'm really pleased I finally got around to it. Straight from the back cover of the book: "A writer of graphic novels, in an attempt to rescue a kidnapped father of two children, is taken over by his own fictional creation, tough guy P.I. "Sainte-Claire", and undergoes a terrifying metamorphosis. Set in the ... Read Review |
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Bye Bye Baby, Lauren Crow12/08/2007 - 12:02pmIn separate parts of England two bodies have been found - both of them horribly mutilated, ritually humiliated... but strangely, it seems, most of the worst of the atrocities are committed after the men were heavily drugged. Aside from the method, which indicates a single killer, there's precious little obvious connection between these two victims, and Scotland Yard is called in to take over the investigation. DCI Jack Hawksworth is put in charge of the investigation, despite an horrendous outcome in his last case. He puts together a team of investigators - many of whom he has ... Read Review |
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The Undertow, Peter Corris08/08/2007 - 1:04pmThere's absolutely nothing better in Australian Crime fiction than a short, sharp burst of Cliff Hardy in his prime. And THE UNDERTOW has all those elements that fans of the hard-boiled, down-trodden; put upon; unlucky in love; hard man; unflinching good guy - only slightly dodgy around the edges; Australian style Private Enquiry Agent, are going to love. Somehow or other, after all these books featuring Cliff Hardy, where Cliff undergoes little in the way of major personality changes, where he's still struggling to understand the girl (any girl) and his friends keep digging holes ... Read Review |
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Collins Street Whores, Peter Ralph07/08/2007 - 11:58amCollins Street Whores starts off very evocatively (for me at least) with a powerful motorbike being ridden along the Dandenong Tourist Road - a hop skip and a jump from our front door. Unfortunately for me, the interest in the story waned pretty soon after that. Overall the plot is fairly good, but there were too many elements in COLLINS STREET WHORES that just didn't work for me. Granted this could be because anything "financial" has a tendency to bring me out in hives, but more so because there were too many characters to just not care about that much. Possibly the idea that the ... Read Review |
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Frantic, Katherine Howell06/08/2007 - 1:55pmSophie Phillips is a paramedic and her husband Chris is a cop. When Sophie and her paramedic partner are called to a premature labour case, the results of the early labour are tragic, and despite Sophie and Mick being very sure they have done the right thing, the baby's father - Boyd Sawyer is grief stricken and irrational - and he goes out of his way to threaten Sophie and Mick. Meanwhile Sophie and Chris's previously happy marriage has been fading recently. Chris was badly assaulted during a recent arrest and ever since then he's been increasingly moody and distant. Whilst all ... Read Review |
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Connections Crime Rackets and Networks of Influence Down-Under, Bob Bottom05/08/2007 - 1:22pmCONNECTIONS as a copyright notice in it of 1985 so that makes it over 20 years old, so what made reading this particularly startling is the way that whilst some things have changed, many many others haven't. This book takes you back through some of the standard methods of operation of Organised Crime figures in Australia, along with an outline of the big "crime" families that were around in those days. Sure sending drugs into invalid addresses via Australia Post, so that your accomplice on the inside can grab the envelopes might not be so easy these days, as is wholesale ... Read Review |
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Vodka Doesn't Freeze, Leah Giarratano03/08/2007 - 4:53pmNobody could possibly call reading VODKA DOESN'T FREEZE a pleasure - it's an absolutely heartbreaking and very discomforting book. The author is a trauma psychologist who works with victims, and victims are very much the focus of VODKA DOESN'T FREEZE. A young girl, victim of sexual abuse kills herself. Her psychologist Mercy treats patients who have suffered trauma, but Mercy seems to be very close to breaking in her own right. A middle-aged man is beaten to death in his hiding spot in the scrub, overlooking a children's pool. This is not a victim for whom anybody ... Read Review |
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The Dead Pool, Sue Walker31/07/2007 - 3:05pmKirstin Rutherford returns to Edinburgh after two years. Five months ago her beloved father-in-law Jamie drowned in The Cauldron - a deep pool in the Water of Leith, only nobody had told Kirstin. Divorced from Ross, she finds that Ross has not told her about Jamie's death or his funeral for some strange reason. Even more distressing than not being told, it seems that everyone thinks that Jamie's death was either a tragic accident or suicide, but Kirstin refuses to believe that the man she knew could possibly have committed suicide. Ross is not so sure, positive his father had ... Read Review |
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The Last Testament, Sam Bourne28/07/2007 - 4:08pmThe blurb for THE LAST TESTAMENT reads along the lines of "The Biggest Challenger to Dan Brown's Crown" and "A brilliant new high-concept religious conspiracy theory thriller", which might put some readers off, or at the very least set you up with some pre-conceived conceptions about the book. Ignore all of that and you'll be getting a fast paced, believable thriller which sets itself within a current day conflict in a very realistic manner. In the dying days of the regime in Iraq, the Baghdad Museum of Antiquities is looted. A young boy takes an ancient clay tablet, ... Read Review |
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Cold Granite, Stuart MacBride20/07/2007 - 1:47pmCOLD GRANITE is one of those debut books that come along and slowly cause a stir of comment and discussion in crime fiction forums. So much commentary just makes you want to get that book that everyone is talking about, but at the same time you often wonder if there's a chance that it's all noise and not much substance. COLD GRANITE is all substance. On his first day back from extended medical leave, DS Logan just wants to get through his first day and hand responsibility back to his new DI. Despite needing to ease himself back into the job Logan finds himself ... Read Review |
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The Devil's Jump, Peter Doyle20/07/2007 - 1:31pmAnother book from the local books pile that I've been catching up on lately - The Devil's Jump is from the same author that wrote GET RICH QUICK (which won the Ned Kelly for Best First Crime Novel in 1997) and AMAZE YOUR FRIENDS (which won the Ned Kelly for Best Crime Novel in 1999). THE DEVIL'S JUMP is set in Sydney at the end of the Second World War - in fact the blurb on the book says "The war in the Pacific is over... The war on the streets has just begun". It's the story of Billy Glasheen - local lad and (in the author's words) apprentice lurk merchant. Billy's not ... Read Review |
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Dying Light, Stuart MacBride20/07/2007 - 1:23pmDYING LIGHT is the follow-up book to the much talked about and acclaimed COLD GRANITE and it maintains the high standard that the first book in the series reached. It is summer in Aberdeen, the sun is shining and it is not raining anywhere near as much as it does in winter. With his love life sort of looking up and his working life running pretty well par for the course, the major downsides to the entire season seem to be that somebody is killing prostitutes and DS Logan McRae has been moved to DI Steel's "Screw-Up" squad. One botched raid, one severely injured uniformed ... Read Review |
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Broken Skin, Stuart MacBride20/07/2007 - 1:15pmThere's something immensely satisfying about reading a book that tackles some very tricky subject matter head-on, with enough of the gory details to illustrate rather than titivate and just the right level of gallows humour. BROKEN SKIN is the third book featuring DS Logan McRae and it's as good as the first two. It's February and it's raining again. McRae is on DI Steel's team and they are most definitely not at home to her favourite term for a complete disaster, particularly as DI Insch is well on the outer. There's also an awful lot going on. There's a vicious, nasty ... Read Review |
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Sucked In, Shane Maloney19/07/2007 - 3:31pmI happily went out earlier this week and bought a copy of Sucked In and it took me roughly one day to finish it - and that was an unfair delay - I could have sat down and read it in one sitting. Needless to say the 6th book in the Murray Whelan series (for which we've all been waiting an absolute age), lives up to the expectations of the long wait! Murray is older, slightly wiser and just that little bit more cunning. A member of the Upper House of the Victorian Parliament, he and a number of other "pollies" are "doing the rounds" in Country Victoria, when Murray's long ... Read Review |