All the Reviews

Bush Sick Land, Julian Barrett

Set in 1960s small town New Zealand, BUSH SICK LAND is a story that sets itself so firmly in time and place that it's uncomfortable. A time when racism, homophobia and gender stereotypes were not just rife, they kind of felt like they are being celebrated. Back when radio and vinyl records ruled, when men worked, suppressed all their emotions, fixed stuff, got drunk and lashed out; women cooked, cleaned, dealt with a lot of externally imposed limitations and dodged a lot; and kids did as they were expected to do, and never questioned anything or anyone.

Somewhere in the ... Read Review

Familiars and Foes, Helen Vivienne Fletcher

Adeline yearns for family, but for many years, since the death of her parents when she was a teenager, the closest she's gotten is her assistance dog, Coco. Adeline can also see ghosts. She has seen them all her life, off to the side as she goes about her days, never interacting, but always there. So you can imagine how shocked she is when a ghost speaks to her in the supermarket. And then a particularly malevolent one attacks here in her own home. Adeline also suffers severe epileptic seizures and her reactions to things around her, and people's reactions to her are often tempered by ... Read Review

Murder in Pink, Rodney Strong

MURDER IN PINK is the fourth book in the Hitchhiker series featuring Oliver Atkinson, his family, and his ... hangers on. Basically Oliver is an unwilling house husband, and amateur investigator who is "aided" by witnesses or involved parties, who inhabit his being. Ghosts with opinions and justice on their minds. Heftily on the cosy side, this series has a number of elements to it that readers will just have to love or hate - the sense of humour, the self-deprecation of the central character, his put-upon demeanour, to say nothing of the whole idea of "ghost witnesses" who hitch a ... Read Review

Flash Jim, Kel Richards

FLASH JIM is the story of James Hardy Vaux, writer of Australia's first dictionary and first true-crime memoir. It's kind of appealing to know the first dictionary came about as a result of the inability of colonial police and magistrates to understand the slang used by the criminal classes. I will admit to being somewhat startled still to discover the words and phrases that are particularly unique to Australian English (normally as a result of the utterly blank look on the face of the hearer from another land).

But the story of James Hardy Vaux is the main point of FLASH ... Read Review

The Paris Collaborator, A.W. Hammond

The Second World War is now a long time in the past, we must have lost just about everybody with personal experience of that time, and the lengths people had to go to in order to survive, so historical fiction that casts a light on the real, every day experience feels particularly timely.

THE PARIS COLLABORATOR is the story of Auguste Duchene, a former schoolteacher, living in German-occupied Paris, finding missing people as a way to survive. Approached by the French Resistance to locate a missing priest, and a cache of stolen weapons, his initial refusal is thwarted when ... Read Review

Death Beyond the Limit, B.M. Allsopp

DEATH BEYOND THE LIMIT is the third novel in the Fiji Island Mysteries series featuring superstar ex-Rugby player, now Police Inspector, Joe Horseman. This is one of those series that will work really well if you're reading it in order, but luckily won't matter too much if you don't.

Having really enjoyed the first two novels in this series, one of the aspects I was particularly intrigued about was the balancing act between what's increasingly becoming the two central police investigators - Horseman, with his Fijian background, culture and sensibility and his sidekick DS ... Read Review

Furey's War, TW Lawless & Kay Bell

Jack Furey is 100 years old, in a nursing home, and not a happy man. In the introduction to FUREY'S WAR it quickly becomes apparent that Jack is his own man, not somebody to be trifled with, and definitely not somebody to underestimate, even after a devastating stroke. Inside his head, Jack's as clear as a bell, really annoyed at everything to do with the nursing home (and who could blame him), and desperate to reunite with his much loved, late wife Gracie.

The story quickly heads back to 1942, and the town of Wangamba in Australia, where Jack was the local copper, a ... Read Review

The Sound of Her Voice, Nathan Blackwell

Cop-turned novelist, Nathan Blackwell (true identity hidden due to covert police operations) has written a debut novel, THE SOUND OF HER VOICE, which is intense, unsparing, realistic, brutal and will stay with the reader for a long time.

Every year the Ngaio Marsh awards for New Zealand crime fiction throw up an unexpected perspective, something brave and unusual that will set you back on your heels and make you think. For this reviewer, this year, that book was THE SOUND OF HER VOICE. In what's a combination of police procedural, and tragic police perspective, Detective ... Read Review

Call for the Dead, John Le Carre

Before the death of author John Le Carre, I'd already promised myself a re-run through the George Smiley series, for two reasons. I'd listened to AGENT RUNNING IN THE FIELD last year and been absolutely taken with the style of narration from the author himself; then late one night we'd stumbled upon a stream of the 1965 movie of THE SPY WHO CAME IN FROM THE COLD, having already been very pleased to find the same of Sir Alec Guinness in the TV series TINKER TAILOR SOLDIER SPY. Distinctly remember Clive James being somewhat underwhelmed by the same - a quote from his original review “ ... Read Review