All the Reviews

The Killing Habit, Mark Billingham

A new drug called ‘spice’ is wreaking havoc in the UK prison system and the authorities have no clue as to how the prisoners are getting hold of it. As with all drug addictions, it’s a present from the inside to the outside when prisoners who have served their time are released with expensive new drug habits that need to be funded in any way possible.  Detective Inspector Nicola Tanner has made an arrest in relation to a murder that occurs during the collection of a drug debt on the outside and it seems that the police finally have a win on the board.   If only it were that simple. ... Read Review

Shooting Star, Peter Temple

In May 2019 Text Publishing announced their Text Classics version of Peter Temple's SHOOTING STAR, two decades on from the original release date. 

It's well worth getting hold of a copy of this edition for Adrian McKinty's introduction alone, as it gives real insight into the person that Peter Temple was, and the impact that he had on the Australian Crime Writing community. He is a man who is much missed, and whilst we're all really thankful for the work that he left us, it's impossible not to think of all the work we've missed out on. Which thinking made a re-read of the ... Read Review

Only Killers and Thieves, Paul Howarth

Right from the opening pages ONLY KILLERS AND THIEVES is brutal. Transporting readers to colonial Australia, this is a book that will should make you ponder how we got to be where we are. In the main this is a story about brutal people, doing unspeakable things - to Indigenous people, animals, and each other along the way. There's a ruthlessness portrayed here that's going to make you stop reading, to stare off into the distance. In fact the overwhelming feeling I came away from this book with was one of profound distress. At the brutality, at the carelessness, at the way that we seem ... Read Review

This Mortal Boy, Fiona Kidman

Every year the Ngaio Marsh Awards for New Zealand Crime Fiction include something that makes this reader marvel at the depth and quality of work coming out of that country. Dame Fiona Kidman came to THIS MORTAL BOY as (paraphrasing her own words) an accidental crime writer, but she has form in the central concept, where she has often recreated the past of characters, developing a fictional story based on true events or people. THIS MORTAL BOY is just such an undertaking. 

Albert Black was the second last person executed in New Zealand, and I believe I saw somewhere that ... Read Review

Losing Leah, Sue Walker

Where LOSING LEAH begins is a country mile from where it ends up and that is all to the good. 

Causing a disturbance at a truck stop is a distressed traveller, Chris Hills, who claims that his wife Leah has vanished. It was planned to be only a brief stop for the couple who regularly used the location as a pause in their journeys to their holiday cottage in Wales. There was nothing unusual about Chris and Leah Hills quickly pulling their car in to buy coffee and use the rest rooms before continuing on with the rest of their trip.  However, plenty of discrepancies soon ... Read Review

The Day She Disappeared, Christobel Kent

After a messy breakup, Nat is ready to move on with her life and to figure out what might come next.  Her miserable ex, Jim, might be stubbornly refusing to accept the new reality and let her go but Nat is keen to put it all firmly behind her, maybe even have a bit of a laugh over it with her mate Beth. Beth has always been a different operator to Nat – outgoing and determinedly pragmatic when it comes to enjoying the company of men as they take her eye.  Beth has always been the good time friend, but Nat has always trusted the substance of Beth behind the bright and bubbly front that ... Read Review

55, James Delargy

Rural noir is a thing at the moment, which means some stellar entries in the category, and some not so good ones. Makes opening each new novel and settling in for the experience a bit of rollercoaster ride. So did 55 live up to the hype? Well yes, yes it did.

It's an intriguing premise - a man stumbles into the police station in a small town, covered in dried blood. His name is Gabriel and he claims he was hitch-hiking, looking for work, when he was picked up, drugged and restrained by iron chains in a small shack in the bush. His captor, known ... Read Review

The Plot to Kill Peter Fraser, David McGill

This is now the second book by NZ author David McGill that I've read, both of which share a central detecting character, and a style being a combination of true history and crime fiction. The first novel, THE DEATH RAY DEBACLE was set in 1935, and this one, THE PLOT TO KILL PETER FRASER, is in the period around the end of World War II and, interestingly, in the early days of the development of the United Nations. Peter Fraser was the 24th Prime Minister of New Zealand, serving in that role from March 1940 until December 1949. A Labour Party member, he was renowned for leading New ... Read Review

Class Act, Ged Gillmore

Book two in the Bill Murdoch series, CLASS ACT follows up almost immediately from the action in the first outing, HEADLAND. This series, now up to three novels with the release of BASE NATURE in 2018, is well worth getting into.

Set in small-town, seaside New South Wales, based around reluctant Private Investigator, ex-bad boy, Bill Murdoch, the first book introduces him, his background and the events that bring him to small town life, the big house by the beach and the fancy car. It may be best if you start this series with the first book if possible, as the lead up to ... Read Review