All the Reviews

Shepherd, Catherine Jinks

In essence a chase novel, Shepherd is also a confidently pitched work about something just a little different. There’s not a lot written that is set in this time, being the settler years of Australia, so that alone is something of a literary hook and grab for a young reader to pick up this book. Featuring the voice of a young convict sent out to work in the remote New South Wales outback, Shepherd tells a fine tale of how inner grit and resourcefulness can be applied to any situation, however unfamiliar.

A poacher’s son, twelve year old Tom Clay is well used to tripping ... Read Review

Lokahi's Triangle and Kanaloa's Betrayal, J.M. Calverley

LOKAHI'S TRIANGLE and KANALOA'S BETRAYAL are book 4 and 5 in the Detective Reef Kahili series respectively. Set in Hawaii these books are about as close to a travelogue love letter to a location, it's people and it's culture that crime fiction can get without forgetting to be crime fiction.

Littered with references to food, places, good looks and people this is most definitely not a series for fans of noir, but if you're looking for something on the lighter, airier, edging towards romance side, then Detective Reef Kahili and his sidekick Kalani Rogers could be just the ... Read Review

Dear Child, Romy Hausmann

It is difficult to read of women’s lives being micromanaged by their domestic captors to the point of scheduled toilet breaks, and of young children being raised entirely behind closed doors.  These are hard novels to take on. If you are reading this because you have heard Dear Child compared to ‘The Room’, you will however find quite a different kind of novel here.  

To her husband, she is Lena, and to the children, she is Mama.  Mama is a fragile lady who often has the shakes and can sometimes be a bit forgetful.  Sometimes Mama might forget to say thankyou, or neglect ... Read Review

You Yet Shall Die, Jennifer Barraclough

Good idea at the heart of this novel from NZ author Jennifer Barraclough. Hilda is a reclusive, single woman, living in a ramshackle cottage on the North Kent marshes with her rescue cats. Her father has recently died, and her brother Dunstan is struggling with that death, the breakdown of his own marriage and financial problems. When a young woman arrives on Hilda's doorstep announcing she is their half-sister, the love child of their now dead father, Dunstan doesn't cope - already on the verge of collapse, he turns to desperate measures. Which leads Hilda to seek the truth behind ... Read Review

Small Gods, Terry Pratchett

Brutha is the Chosen One. His god has spoken to him, admittedly while currently in the shape of a tortoise.

Discworld does religion and it does it with style, panache, some affection, a lot of tongue in cheek, plenty of skewering and some subtly pointed out absurdities.

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Would She Be Gone, Melanie Harding-Shaw

A Novella in the "Censored City" series, WOULD SHE BE GONE packs a big punch in a short, sharp delivery. A dystopian future awaits, where the Librarian Algorithm enforces censorship of stories and words that could cause trauma or crime (not a future I can get on board with at all). In this world Detective Virginia Wright goes undercover in the criminal world of performance poetry to hunt down a suspected ring of illegal open-access ereader suppliers. Fragile since the death of her mother, separated from her family on purpose, her world falls apart when they are arrested for literary ... Read Review

In the Clearing, J.P. Pomare

I distinctly remember years ago, standing in a bank queue behind a small, blonde, immaculately turned out woman, who I eventually recognised as Anne Hamilton-Byrne. At the time I mused why it was that nobody had written Australian crime fiction about the sorts of cults that she was responsible for. Even then, in the outer Melbourne fringes, we'd all heard stories about the odd goings in her circle, we knew about the blonde children, and we knew it was dodgy. Alas we didn't find out until many years later just how dodgy, how cruel, how manipulative, and how utterly unbelievable the ... Read Review

Can You See Her?, S.E. Lynes

Not a new concept but so unacknowledged!  Yes, the middle aged woman is pretty much invisible.  If you're over 40 and female, one could rob a bank, steal a car or murder someone and likely no one would ever think it was you. Can You See Her chronicles the effects of loss and how age erodes the sense of self from a woman and mother. 

Rachel Edwards is a collector of local true crime news, terrified what the rise of knife crime is doing to her country.  With the aim of one day presenting her findings to her local MP, Rachel's hobby causes concern in her family. Her snarky ... Read Review

Trust Me, I'm Dead - Sherryl Clark

Shortlisted for the 2018 CWA Debut Daggar, TRUST ME, I'M DEAD, is the first crime novel from New Zealand born, Australian resident writer Sherryl Clark, best known for her children's writing, although I understand there's now a sequel to this novel planned for this year. Any possible sequel should be regarded as a very good thing, whenever it is released.

Judi Westerholme leads a secluded life, out in a rural area, working her vegetable patch, and mostly minding her own business, she's a woman with a past of her own. She hasn't seen her brother for years, having been ... Read Review