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Transgression, Roger Simpson20/12/2022 - 12:27pmHaving been a fan of the Halifax TV Series, starring Rebecca Gibney as Dr Jane Halifax, this book was greeted with considerable excitement. The author, Roger Simpson, is an award-winning screen writer, creating both the telemovie series of Halifax f.p. (which ran from 1994 to 2001) and its sequel, Halifax: Retribution in 2020. For those Australians watching, they might also have heard of some of his other TV work - Stingers, Something in the Air, Silver Sun and Satisfaction. Needless to say, if anybody knows Dr Jane Halifax it's author Roger Simpson. The question that ... Read Review |
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Stone Town, Margaret Hickey19/12/2022 - 12:53pmSTONE TOWN by Margaret Hickey follows the story of the central character introduced in her (very good) debut novel CUTTERS END. Senior Sergeant Mark Ariti's moved from the South Australian outback back to his home town of Booralama. Since the death of his mother, he's living on his own in his childhood home, with all the memories that brings with it, dealing with the people he grew up with, and those that are new to the town. While he's busy with the day to day issues of small town policing, the big story is about a missing cop - Detective Sergeant Natalie Whitsted has vanished - no ... Read Review |
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Those Who Perish, Emma Viskic02/12/2022 - 4:27pmI'm not good with the end of things that I've really loved but when it came to the Caleb Zelic series by Emma Viskic, it turns out there was only so long I could hold out. The earlier books in the series, RESURRECTION BAY, AND FIRE CAME DOWN, and DARKNESS FOR LIGHT, introduced readers to the messy world that Caleb Zelic inhabits, although there are glimpses in THOSE WHO PERISH of a man determined, and very nearly managing, to get his act together. For readers new to this series, (where have you been!) Zelic has a complicated backstory, growing up in a small ... Read Review |
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Quiet in Her Bones, Nalini Singh30/11/2022 - 5:26pmA slow burn psychological thriller, QUIET IN HER BONES is beautifully executed with a pace that seems to stroll along, focusing mostly on a range of characters that stand out from the page. Socialite Nina Rai vanished ten years ago, along with a quarter of a million dollars in cash. Her son Aarav heard a chilling scream the night she went, but it wasn't until years later that her remains are discovered in the dense forest that surrounds their elite, privileged, secretive, exclusive neighbourhood. Aarav's desire to find out what happened on that night is compelled by his ... Read Review |
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Black River, Matthew Spencer28/11/2022 - 1:13pmNot so long ago, you couldn't move for serial killer novels, and a lot of readers (including this one) were over them. Since then the "popularity" does seem to have waned, and there's a marked tendency to make that those that do show up - very good indeed. As it was with BLACK RIVER which turned out to be an absolute page-turner. Based in Sydney, in geographic locations, and a central character's backstory that seems to have more than a few echoes with the author's, this is the story of the mysterious deaths of a number of young women, their bodies having been discovered ... Read Review |
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Banjawarn, Josh Kemp27/11/2022 - 5:35pmThere seems to have been quite a few dystopian styled novels passing before my reading eye in recent months, and BANJAWARN is the latest. Josh Kemp's debut novel is Gothic, gritty, depressing, uplifting, disturbing and rewarding - sometimes at different times, sometimes simultaneously so. All in all, a most unusual reading experience. The central character, Garreth Hoyle, is a true crime writer addicted to hallucinogenic drugs, with a best-seller book behind him, based on his experiences on a sheep station - Banjawarn. The book estranged him from some of the ... Read Review |
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Unsheltered, Clare Moleta27/11/2022 - 2:07pmUp front, it was utterly impossible to avoid comparisons with McCarthy's THE ROAD right from the start of this novel, so I gave up trying not to. Dystopian in nature, thriller in intent, UNSHELTERED is yet another one of those novels that I suspect will spark widely different reactions, and opinions. A bold noir undertaking, this is the story of a woman's search for her missing daughter. A daughter Li never really wanted in the first place, although now eight-year-old Matti is missing, all she wants is to get her back. Set within the dual conflicts of climate ... Read Review |
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The Late Monsieur Gallet, Georges Simenon22/11/2022 - 5:28pmOne of my current audio quests is to go back to the beginning of the Inspector Maigret series and work my way through. THE LATE MONSIEUR GALLET is the third book in the series, so it was particularly interesting to note how firmly the characteristics of Maigret are established already. His tendency for reflection and observation, and his dogged determination are all on display as he works to solve the baffling case of the travelling salesman with a mystery in his background. That Monsieur Gallet's death came as a shock to his family, and the people of the small town where ... Read Review |
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A Good Winter, Gigi Fenster18/11/2022 - 3:52pmThe second fiction book from New Zealand writer, Gigi Fenster, A GOOD WINTER is a story of a group of women, after Lara moves to the city to be near her widowed, pregnant daughter. Sophie really starts to struggle after Michael is born, her grief compounded by post-natal depression. The city apartment block Lara has moved to was already home to Olga, and their friendship commences with the simplest of things - Olga's green fingers and Lara's uncanny ability to kill all sorts of pot plants, moving quickly to something closer when Sophie's crisis draws them together, as Olga steps in to ... Read Review |
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The Thursday Murder Club, Richard Osman16/11/2022 - 5:30pmEnded up listening to this as an audiobook after mildly panicking that the third in the series was about to lob, and I was still struggling to get to this debut on the teetering unread pile. Glad I did. Fans of this style of novel will be well aware of the buzz around THE THURSDAY MURDER CLUB (the book name / and the group that it features). Four people from a retirement village (Cooper's Chase) who meet weekly to investigate unsolved mysteries, the old hands Elizabeth, Ibraham and Ronald are joined by recent arrival Joyce, just as two murders occur right on their ... Read Review |
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The Widow of Walcha, Emma Patridge15/11/2022 - 5:34pmGrazier Mathew Dunbar led a quiet life, working on his farm, helping out with the local poultry club, meeting up with the few very close friends he had. An adopted child, he'd had a tricky relationship with his parents, his father dying not improving things between Dunbar and his mother, despite her desperate wish to reconnect. All Dunbar seemed to really want was to find love and have a family of his own, which made him a prime target for the deeply flawed, dangerous and vicious Natasha Darcy. A woman with a litany of manipulative and cruel behaviour behind her, Mathew stuck with her ... Read Review |
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The Last Guests, J.P. Pomare14/11/2022 - 2:12pmJ.P. Pomare won the Ngaio Marsh Award for Best First Novel with his debut CALL ME EVIE. Since then he's carved out a name for himself when it comes to precisely plotted, atmospheric, tense psychological thrillers populated by cleverly constructed characters, designed to keep readers guessing, disconcerted and utterly fascinated. In THE LAST GUESTS he's combined high technology and human frailty to create a plot that takes readers into a careful examination of morality, via the avenues of voyeurism, trauma, exposure, trust, and the things we will (and won't do) for love. ... Read Review |
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City of Vengeance, D.V. Bishop11/11/2022 - 1:22pmThe debut novel in a series featuring Cesare Aldo, former soldier, now an officer in the city's most feared criminal court, CITY OF VENGEANCE is set during the winter of 1536 in Florence, Italy. At that time Florence was a wealthy and influential city, ruled over by the Duke Alessandro de Medici - volatile and dangerous in his own right. When a prominent Jewish moneylender is murdered in his home Aldo is directed to solve the murder before the feast of Epiphany, in four days time. What the edict doesn't take into account is the plot that Aldo uncovers to overthrow de Medici. ... Read Review |
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The Consequence, Gabriel Bergmoser10/11/2022 - 4:39pmOne of my recent audio book listens, THE CONSEQUENCE by Gabriel Bergmoser features hardman, rogue ex-cop Jack Carlin who's the sort of bloke that finds running thugs out of town, and handing over all of the money they'd stolen to a struggling kid de rigueur. The drug cartel, whose money it ultimately was, isn't quite so laid back about the whole thing, and their idea of revenge is swift and deadly. Leaving Carlin with a couple of big problems - a guilty conscience and a desire for some revenge of his own. Hence the title of this hard-boiled, hard-nosed, gritty outing ... Read Review |
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Waking the Tiger, Mark Wightman09/11/2022 - 4:41pmWAKING THE TIGER is set in 1939 Singapore. Dripping with sense of place and time, there's something vaguely reminiscent of Chandler's styling, and the excellent Inspector Le Fanu series by Brian Stoddart in the characterisation and plot. Inspector Maximo Betancourt is working a new beat, that he never wanted. Following the disappearance of his own wife, everything has collapsed around him, including his career. Once a rising star of the Singapore CID, he's been relegated to the Marine Division, adjudicating dockyard disputes and conducting goods inspections. ... Read Review |
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Miracle, Jennifer Lane09/11/2022 - 12:06pmBeing a 14 year old girl is never an easy undertaking, but living in a dying town, in a family beset with problems makes Miracle's life that bit more complicated. She's known as Miracle because she was born in the middle of Australia's biggest-ever earthquake. The same quake that so traumatised her older brother that he's been left living with an ongoing mental health / nervous issue. Her mother's agoraphobic, her father's not coping with unemployment, and the boy she really likes, Oli, is playing really cruel tricks on her. All in all, a bit of a mess. Anyone who has ... Read Review |
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Conviction, Frank Chalmers05/11/2022 - 4:22pmQueensland, 1976, the town of Royalton and exiled Detective Ray Windsor, sent to the dying town in the state's west, feels like an alien in his own country. Royalton is ruled by corruption, populated by despair and an overwhelming sense of hopelessness, something that Windsor instantly has an absolutely guttural reaction to - his police hierarchy is just awful, and the general lack of interest in the death of a couple of young girls shocking to a man who might be good with his fists, but he's a decent cop, in a difficult situation. A lot of the elements that come into ... Read Review |
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Be My Enemy, Christopher Brookmyre02/11/2022 - 5:26pmNumber 4 in the Jack Parlabane series and silly me thought this would be an excellent audio book to have burbling away in the background whilst I got on with some work around the house. Kept having to stop and listen hard, or lean against a wall because I was laughing so much. Then there was the meal they served just after the cook left in a huff, and I'm standing in the kitchen thinking about dinner (we had salad). It took me a while. This is such a funny, clever, ranty series, filled with human and political observation that just seems to stay apt no matter ... Read Review |
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Wake, Shelley Burr01/11/2022 - 5:25pmWAKE won the CWA Debut Dagger in 2019, and it's not at all hard to see why. Atmospheric and cleverly constructed, with a strong sense of place and realistic characters, WAKE has a plot that bring past trauma, grief, guilt and violence forward in a family, and community, to the consequences that play out in the present. Mina McCreery was 9 when her twin sister Evelyn disappeared from the family farm in remote NSW. Nearly 20 years later, the fact that they never found any trace of her haunts Mina, who still lives on the farm. Lane Holland is a private ... Read Review |
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Sweet Jimmy, Bryan Brown01/11/2022 - 3:35pmBryan Brown is an actor synonymous in these parts with that sort of dry, pared back, quintessentially Aussie bloke character, much like the ones he's played in THE CHANT OF JIMMIE BLACKSMITH and for those of die-hard local crime fiction fans, the much missed Cliff Hardy in THE EMPTY BEACH. It comes as no surprise then that he's had a bit of a dabble in crime fiction, and the book is a series of short stories steeped in humour, violence, pathos and inner-city Australian sensibility. Primarily set in suburban Sydney, there are seven short stories in this book, and they vary ... Read Review |