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In the Clearing, J.P. Pomare26/03/2020 - 2:15pmWhat is always surprising about cults is that they consistently manage to attract seemingly intelligent people who leave their ordered lives to join bizarre communities run by petty tyrants with delusions of grandeur. What is sadly not surprising is that at the centre of cults there are often innocents, the children. There’s a few plot devices or themes that can pop up in crime fiction which are not for everyone. Cults might be one of those for you, as they usually are for me. In the Clearing is based on a real-life cult, an Australian new age group known as ‘The ... Read Review |
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Small Mercies, Richard Anderson12/03/2020 - 12:42pmSMALL MERCIES by Richard Anderson is one of those books that should be mandatory reading for all Australians. I certainly hope somebody in education circles SERIOUSLY contemplates putting it into English syllabuses as I don't think most city based Australian's have a clue about the mind games that drought inflicts on people and places. I also hope there's not many rural dwellers in Australia who don't love the place that they live, and feel some responsibility for it's health and welfare. It's hard to explain to anybody who hasn't experienced the feeling - but the impact ... Read Review |
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Our Dark Secret, Jenny Quintana11/03/2020 - 2:41pmCrime Fiction themes do have a tendency to come in waves, but the past having a direct impact on somebody's present and future is a particularly rich field when tilled well, and Jenny Quintana has done that with considerable skill in OUR DARK SECRET. Based around the character of Elizabeth Constance Valentine, the storyline moves from Elizabeth's 70's childhood, an only child, awkward, shy, clever, tending towards a bit frumpy and overweight. She adored her father Ted (of the wandering eye) but had a more complicated relationship with her more uptight mother Phyllis, ... Read Review |
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Eric, Terry Pratchett11/03/2020 - 2:02pmNumber 9 in the Discworld series, ERIC is the story of the Discworld's only demonology hacker. Of course the Discworld has a demonology hacker, and of course he wants to be master of the universe, and of course he's hopeless at getting his own way. And the Luggage makes it's first appearance. What's not to love.Read Review |
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Moving Pictures, Terry Pratchett11/03/2020 - 1:57pmI'm still wallowing happily around in the audio versions of the Discworld series - working my way from the start to the end and loving every minute of it, despite it being mostly re-reading / re-listening. MOVING PICTURES is, not surprisingly, the story of Holy Wood come to the Discworld. A bit of an accident / come happy outcome on the part of the Alchemists and the film industry is born. As are stars, starlets, agents, theatre owners, and strange beings from another place. All coincide for yet another excellent outing in the mad world of the Disc.Read Review |
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Our Dark Secret, Jenny Quintana10/03/2020 - 2:39pmIf you are one of those readers who likes to get stuck in early into a novel’s backstory, right back to the early years of what may have pre-empted the enactment of a crime, this slow moving and meticulously detailed mystery will satisfy. Our Dark Secret is the story of a girl who desperately wants to belong, and be loved, but never finds herself being a priority for anyone. Elizabeth Constance Valentine, she of the very elegant name, is anything but. As a teenager in the 1970’s when willowy young ladies were the ‘it’ girls of the era, Elizabeth would like to fit in ... Read Review |
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The Good Turn, Dervla McTiernan25/02/2020 - 12:56pmWith police corruption at its dark heart, The Good Turn is another solid entry in a police procedural series that has been pure gold for crime fiction fans since the first book. Adjusting to the new reality of his long-distance relationship with girlfriend Emma, Cormac Reilly has less patience in the tank than usual to deal with the politics that govern the daily machinations of his job. Cormac is more than aware that his work superiors do not regard him as a team player, and the level of his concern about these opinions would seem to be decreasing with each day that ... Read Review |
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Guards! Guards!, Terry Pratchett24/02/2020 - 2:06pmThe 8th book in the Discworld series by Terry Pratchett, GUARDS! GUARDS! introduces readers to the main characters of The Night Watch - Sam Vimes, Fred Colon, Nobby Nobbs, Carrot Ironfoundersson (diversity quotas don't hit until a bit later in the series, so there are a lot more to come). The Night Watch is generally regarded as a bunch of no-hopers, wandering about during the night, ringing bells and walking backwards quickly from anything slightly dodgy just in case some policing might be called upon. But new recruit Carrot, a 6'6" tall "dwarf" recently arrived in the Watch, has ... Read Review |
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City Without Stars, Tim Baker20/02/2020 - 3:02pmDark humour, brutal murder, appalling degradation, unrelenting poverty and corrupt law enforcement all combine to create something challenging, and thought-provoking in CITY WITHOUT STARS. Following on from his first novel FEVER CITY (shortlisted for the CWA's John Creasey New Blood Dagger, and nominated for the Private Eye Writers of America's Shamus Award for best first novel), Tim Baker, has created a view of Mexico in this second novel that's confronting and discomforting. In amongst the heat, noise and sheer pulse of life within Ciudad Real, there are stories of ... Read Review |
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Pyramids, Terry Pratchett19/02/2020 - 2:10pmAs the blurb puts it, "It isn't easy, being a teenage pharaoh. You're not allowed to carry money, uninhibited young women peel your grapes for you, everyone thinks you're responsible for making the sun rise and the corn grow, you keep dreaming about seven thin cows and seven fat cows (one of them playing the trombone), and on top of everything else, the Great Pyramid has just exploded because of paracosmic instability." I'm not sure you could call this the sort of First World problems that confront your average great leader, especially when the rest of the blurb states " ... Read Review |
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A Tropical Cure, John Hollenkamp17/02/2020 - 4:51pmA bit of housekeeping up front. A TROPICAL CURE is the second book from John Hollenkamp to feature cab driver Darren Mangan, following on from STEALTH. That to be honest, I really should have read first up because it took some serious concentrating to figure out what was going on here. In short, STEALTH will introduce you to Mangan, a Sydney cab-driver whose life takes a bit of a sideways step after he breaks up a savage fight, and lots of things happen to him. Cut to A TROPICAL CURE, Townsville, and a missing cab driver (not Mangan), a burnt out cab, and a ... Read Review |
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Cassie Clark - Outlaw, Brian Falkner17/02/2020 - 2:37pmAnother Young Adult novel, this time with less messaging and more just flat out thrills and spills, CASSIE CLARK: OUTLAW features the daughter of the Speaker of the House, a senior congressman, who has disappeared, supposedly run off with a journalist. Cassie's recovering from a bike crash when this occurs, but she knows her Dad, who incidentally is third in line for President of the USA, and knows he would never abandon his family or the job. Determined to find out what really happened, Cassie Clark becomes a teenage sleuth with a determination that would put many ... Read Review |
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The Chinese Proverb and One Single Thing, Tina Clough15/02/2020 - 2:35pmONE SINGLE THING is the second in the Hunter Grant series from NZ author Tina Clough. You don't have to have read the earlier book (THE CHINESE PROVERB, 2017) to get this outing to work, but this series is developing into something a bit special, and it's always best to get in at the start when that's going on. Somehow I managed completely and utterly to miss posting a review of THE CHINESE PROVERB when I read it, so this is now a combined thing. The first book in the series was released in 2017, after an earlier standalone novel by the same author. THE ... Read Review |
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Unreliable Memoirs, Clive James14/02/2020 - 1:38pmIn 2015 I wrote a short review of UNRELIABLE MEMOIRS:
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Falling Towards England, Clive James14/02/2020 - 1:17pmThe second in the Unreliable Memoirs set of books sees Clive James newly arrived in post-war England, a Sydney boy trying to make good in the bright lights, high(er) society and learned sets of English society. Don't read this, however, if you're expecting the really breezy, cleverly observant, self-deprecating ways of his childhood. Young adult Clive James is a different beast and he's out of place, out of step and seemingly somewhat out of clues in this world. Moving from self-deprecation clearly into a form of almost self-loathing, the Clive James that is trying to ... Read Review |
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Little White Lies, Phillipa East03/02/2020 - 3:11pmTapping into the guilt of parents everywhere who have all had their days where it simply went to hell on public transport, Little White Lies is a novel about repercussions, regret and the tangled webs we weave. The life of the White family moved on, as it had to, after the disappearance of young Abigail from a busy London subway platform. Anne has kept her family together whilst managing her grief, attending to the necessary tasks of raising her twins and being a supportive spouse to her husband Robert. Receiving a call that Abigail has walked into a suburban police ... Read Review |
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She, HC Warner22/01/2020 - 2:16pmEvery now and then we meet a literary villain who is both villain and victim. Meet Bella, a young woman who does not take kindly to being sidelined or left behind. You might recognize her. Someone who once worked in your office. Someone who once dated one of your friends. Someone you’d like never to meet again. This is She. After being so inexplicably dumped by the ebullient Charlotte, Ben was not expecting to bounce into rebound quite so soon. Sweet successful relationship revenge comes in the form of Bella, a drop dead gorgeous young professional who rides into ... Read Review |
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Italian Shoes, Henning Mankell11/01/2020 - 2:06pmITALIAN SHOES by Henning Mankell goes to prove, once again, that a really good writer is a really good writer, regardless of the genre, styling, or setting of the book. Exploring the themes of estrangement, loss, fear and isolation ITALIAN SHOES isn't a crime fiction novel, it's a poignant, beautiful, sad, uplifting and evocative look at a man, his life, his mistakes and his redemption. Frederick Welin is sixty-six years old, a former surgeon who has spent the last 12 years of his life, purposely exiled to the island home that his grandparents left him. He has carved ... Read Review |
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Impossible Causes, Julie Mayhew31/12/2019 - 2:56pmChoosing the remote island of Lark to relocate to is a decision made by the Kendricks in the wake of enormous loss. Viola and her mother Deborah will never be the same again now it is only the two of them, and the safety offered by the tiny community of Lark seems heaven sent at just the right time. Lark, population 300, is only accessible by sea twice a year and rarely approves new residents to its shores. Teacher Leah, who regularly seeks the wisdom of the tarot via her spiritual neighbour Margaritte, is joyed to discover that one of the three new residents of Lark is ... Read Review |
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Bruny, Heather Rose08/12/2019 - 2:18pmA comment often made about BRUNY is that readers going in did not know it was going to be such a political read. BRUNY is one of those works that very effectively puts the frighteners on for many fronts; climate change, politics, foreign investment, cultural divides – swing the proverbial, you’ll find it here. The building of a bridge between mainland Tasmania and Bruny Island is a contentious issue with many island residents not seeing the point of making a part of the world that should be protected that so much more accessible. Called back home by the twin powers ... Read Review |