All the Reviews

Win, Lose or Draw, Peter Corris

Many years ago there was a specialist bookshop tucked away in Auburn Road, Hawthorn run by a crime fiction expert and massive enabler (I think his name was Malcolm Campbell). He was one of those real-life people that made me thankful I'd made the trek from the bush to the big city, and Peter Corris was another. Sure I probably would have eventually found his books, but arriving in the city, finding that shop, and eventually being introduced to Cliff Hardy, kind of reinforced at that time it had been a good move all round.

From the opening book in the Cliff Hardy series, ... Read Review

Gunshine State, Andrew Nette

GUNSHINE STATE has been compared to Garry Disher's Wyatt series for a very good reason. The anti-hero characterisation here is as crisp and clear as you'd want, with Gary Chance the sort of loner survivor that has stepped straight from the pages of classic noir into the bright lights and dodgy business of Queensland's high-roller world.

When approaching such well sculpted and highly stylised ground as this, there can be a lack of fresh perspective. Not so in GUNSHINE STATE which uses many of the well-known elements of noir (the bad boy central character, dark settings, ... Read Review

Dead Men Don't Order Flake, Sue Williams

Cass Tuplin has returned in second book DEAD MEN DON'T ORDER FLAKE. Proprietor of the recently rebuilt Rusty Bore Takeway, she's a fish, chip and dim sim dispenser extraordinaire with a sideline in private enquiries. Which means she's one of those slightly nosy women who can find out stuff, despite objections from her eldest son, and local Senior Constable, Dean. Her propensity to dig until dirt moves out of the way is part of the reason why a local father, Gary Kellett, asks her to look further into the death of his only daughter. Natalie was a journalist in the "big town up the road ... Read Review

Black Teeth, Zane Lovitt

When THE MIDNIGHT PROMISE won the Ned Kelly Award in 2013 it was impossible not to agree wholeheartedly with the judges' decision. That book telegraphed clearly here was an author to be followed closely. Three years on, BLACK TEETH is worth the wait. Unusual, dark, often funny, always disquieting, this is an intriguing novel.

In it, the lives of two loners, slightly lost men, collide as they search for the same man. One, Jason Ginaff is a technical wiz. He earns his living researching job candidates, finding out the things that people don't want discovered. Raised by a ... Read Review

The Legend of Winstone Blackhat, Tanya Moir

The Crime Fiction genre is a broad church. Delivery styles, subject matter and purpose can vary wildly from the light-hearted to the darkest noir, from purposely vicious and cruel to accidental and panicked. There's even shades in terms of how or why. Investigation and resolution with all loose threads neatly bundled through to something that concentrates more intensely on the why. Why did the victim(s) die, why did the killer take the action they did, even to a certain level why do the investigators do what they do? 

When that shift to the why became particularly marked ... Read Review

All These Perfect Strangers, Aoife Clifford

In 2013 Aoife Clifford was awarded an Australian Society of Author's mentorship to help bring this debut novel - ALL THESE PERFECT STRANGERS - to fruition. To be fair to those who have read it and are finding the idea that this is a debut novel hard to believe, she has form. Shortlisted for the UK Crime Writers Association Debut Dagger, Clifford won the Ned Kelly / S.D. Harvey Short Story Award and a Sisters in Crime Scarlet Stiletto. What she has now produced is an assured, clever and profoundly disconcerting psychological thriller.

In the manner of all good slow burner ... Read Review

Birthdays for the Dead, Stuart MacBride

Something went wrong in the reading universe a while ago and I missed that this had been sitting in the unread list, when I picked up and enjoyed the second in the series - A SONG FOR THE DYING.

Which weirdly turned out to be a good thing as an introduction to a new character and a new series, BIRTHDAYS FOR THE DEAD is not without problems.

MacBride is not the sort of writer who shilly-shally's around with reader sensitivities. So the fact the (fictional) victims here are children and the way that ... Read Review

Running Towards Danger, Tina Clough

The central premise of RUNNING TOWARDS DANGER is a fascinating idea. What would you do if the flatmate that you knew very little about, and saw even less of, is suddenly gunned down in front of you, and the investigation into his death starts to reveal some very worrying facts about his life? Which again, you knew nothing about, but everybody, including the police, don’t believe you.

Would it be to suddenly go into hiding, head off into a small community and try to settle into that world using a different name (Cara), in the hopes that dropping off the radar will ease the ... Read Review

The Tokyo Zodiac Murders, Soji Shimada

Honkaku is a subgenre of Japanese Crime Fiction that came into being sometime in the early 1920's. The original definition was "a detective story that mainly focuses on the process of a criminal investigation and values the entertainment derived from pure logical reasoning". The term was coined to clearly differentiate Honkaku mystery fiction from other subgenres and it was used for both local and Western writers, although a distinct Japanese form became increasingly common in the 1950's.

Adding depth to long tradition, the author of THE TOKYO ZODIAC MURDERS, Soji Shimada ... Read Review