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The Van Apfel Girls Are Gone, Felicity McLean25/06/2019 - 1:29pmThere is much to like about THE VAN APFEL GIRLS ARE GONE. It’s a novel to savour as the imagery is so rich and full that you might be surprised that no other writer has managed to come up with such apt descriptions of commonly known experiences and events before. Australian author Felicity McLean writes beautifully and poignantly of what it is like to experience loss as a child, without the adult’s understanding of what might come next. Here described is that feeling perhaps unique to the young of being powerless in a world run by adults, whom a child presumes ... Read Review |
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One for Another, Andrea Jacka20/06/2019 - 1:16pmA mystery set in 1880's Idaho with a bordello madam Hennessy Reed at the centre of it, that has a lot going for it. I know.... Hennessey Reed is a bordello madam with a liking for laudanum, irish whiskey and the local marshal. Although they keep that last one on the quiet as much as possible. Reed is more than a bit annoyed when her 3 young girls are murdered near her town, Melancholy, where she's part come to hide out and start again. When her own daughter goes missing, she's into the hunt, whether US Marshal Rafael Cooper likes it or not, and she's convinced that a ... Read Review |
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Front Page News, Katie Rowney19/06/2019 - 12:47pmFRONT PAGE NEWS is the debut novel from former Australian journalist Katie Rowney. From the lighter, intended as humour side of crime fiction, cadet journalist Stacey McCallaghan has her first job in the small country town of Toomey working on the local newspaper. Struggling with the grind of making front page news out of the daily goings on in a small town, it's almost like the first dead body is heaven sent for McCallaghan's journalistic ambitions. The hassle, as always with humour, is that it's only going to work for some readers. Needless to say this reader won't be ... Read Review |
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The Nancys, R.W.R. McDonald17/06/2019 - 1:04pmHands up those of us who thought we'd grow up to be Nancy Drew, although I will confess I was more in the Trixie Belden camp. But those books, The Secret Seven, The Famous Five and the Three Investigators series probably had a lot to do with anybody around our age addicted to mysteries, thrillers and crime fiction. Although I doubt anybody quite expected the homage that is THE NANCYS by Kiwi-Australian writer R.W.R. McDonald. And potential readers should be warned - this is not a book you'd be giving to your average 8 year old. Unless you're of a particularly broad mind and even then ... Read Review |
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Devil's Lair. Sarah Barrie17/06/2019 - 12:58pmCallie Jones has never had any reason to mistrust her husband Dale, until the day that derails her entire life. How could Callie have been so wrong about the man she had chosen to spend the rest of her life with? Fleeing from the eyes of the press after Dale’s violent death, Callie takes up the offer of a friend to stay in a cottage in the grounds of a lovely old mansion that has sadly been allowed to decay in the hands of its elderly owner. It’s a lovely place for Callie to rethink her options, and she is not deterred by the spooky stories attached to the main house ... Read Review |
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Their Little Secret, Mark Billingham16/06/2019 - 3:50pmCalled out to confirm a suicide, Thorne feels there is a need to look further into the life of the deceased, Phillipa Goodwin. Death by train was a horrific way to go, and according to Goodwin’s sister, there had been someone new in Phillipa’s life who may have driven her to end it all. Someone who had made a fool of Phillipa, and that humiliation may have been too much for a lonely woman to bear. Two can keep a secret, right, if one of them is dead? Or if one of them hasn’t yet been royally p*ssed off by the other. The romantic swindler who has now come across ... Read Review |
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Malice, Keigo Higashino13/06/2019 - 2:14pmMeticulously crafted, carefully revealed MALICE is part who / part whydunnit steeped in Japanese sensibility and style. Measured and formal, there is something of the ritual dance about MALICE as Police Detective Kyochiro Kaga investigates the brutal murder of bestselling novelist Kunihiko Hidaka. Instantly recognising Hidaka's best friend, and discoverer of his body (alongside Hidaka's wife), Osamu Nonoguchi and Kaga were teachers at the some high school a few years ago. Now an author himself, Nonoguchi, and Hidaka's wife have rock solid alibis. But there's quickly a sneaking ... Read Review |
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Those People, Louise Candlish12/06/2019 - 5:28pmYou have to admire an author's bravery in writing a book that's populated almost entirely by unlikeable people, forcing you to consider if the bad people are really that bad when the good people are really that passive aggressively awful and, for this reader anyway, why anyone would live in the suburbs ever. Okay so that last one is a very personal reaction but when Darren and Jodie move into the family friendly, terribly proper, "suburban dream world" of Lowland Way they aren't quite the right sort of people. For a start they come from a local estate, and they knock down garden walls ... Read Review |
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The Killing Habit, Mark Billingham11/06/2019 - 4:58pmA 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 |
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Elevation, Stephen King11/06/2019 - 3:15pmShould you need a solid reminder (in these troubled, troubled times) of what we're all here on this little blue planet for, you might want to pick up ELEVATION for your next commute. The (fictional) town of Castle Rock, Maine, continues to serve up unforgettable characters to make our collective hearts break, such is the immediacy of our emotional investment in their outcomes. Sad stuff is always going to happen. Prepare yourself for that. Your takeaways will always be the heart wrenching but positive affirmations that all sound tragically sappy when you try to ... Read Review |
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Shooting Star, Peter Temple11/06/2019 - 2:29pmIn 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 |
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The Second Grave, Ian Austin08/06/2019 - 2:28pmSecond in the Dan Calder series, THE SECOND GRAVE moves the action from being all in New Zealand, to England, when Dan returns home to help out his best friend and ex-colleague Nick Hetherington. Hetherington's daughter has been arrested in connection with a murder, and both men can't believe for a moment that she would have had anything to do with the death of a Nottingham based prostitute. Whilst it's not absolutely essential that the earlier book in the series (THE AGENCY) must be read first, this is one of those occasions where it really wouldn't hurt. There's a lot ... Read Review |
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Only Killers and Thieves, Paul Howarth06/06/2019 - 4:26pmRight 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 |
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All That's Dead, Stuart MacBride05/06/2019 - 1:31pmAny author who starts out a blurb with "darkness is coming" and then gives Logan McRae a happy home life needs a damn good glaring at. The only saving grace is that things are typically shit creek / broken paddle at work so it's not a massive glaring at... Book number 12 in the Logan McRae series, ALL THAT'S DEAD, finds him still an Inspector in Professional Standards, sucked into an ongoing murder investigation when the lead investigator is himself about to be outed by the papers as a member of a Scottish Nationalist group. Most inconvenient timing as a high profile anti ... Read Review |
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This Mortal Boy, Fiona Kidman01/06/2019 - 2:10pmEvery 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 |
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Boxed, Richard Anderson30/05/2019 - 1:58pmI know that summer is supposed to be finished, but no one told the sun and its mate, the wind that blisters off the plain, making me feel like a dry frog stranded between water points. But I see the plains grass is still green, the dust is holding low, and the kurrajong tree leaves are shaking their shiny vigour, so perhaps the last few months haven't been that hot. Can't say I've been paying attention. Richard Anderson's latest novel BOXED opens with a series of tableau paragraphs, almost photographic in their capture of place, and a man. Right from that start ... Read Review |
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Losing Leah, Sue Walker29/05/2019 - 2:47pmWhere 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 |
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Half Moon Lake, Kirsten Alexander22/05/2019 - 3:25pmLouisiana 1913. Three young boys are enjoying their summer playing outside near the edge of the forest as their wealthy parents Henry and Mary entertain guests at the family lake house. Next, the unthinkable happens. The Davenports are well known and respected in Opelousas and the disappearance of their youngest child galvanizes the small community into action. After an extensive search, it seems there can be no explanation other than that the four year has been kidnapped. A substantial award is offered for Sonny’s return. With reporters and locals both camping out ... Read Review |
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The Day She Disappeared, Christobel Kent14/05/2019 - 1:50pmAfter 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 |
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Thunder Bay, Douglas Skelton12/05/2019 - 12:56pm“Rebecca waited for the ferry staff to give her the all-clear to walk down the gangway. She felt a thrill of anticipation at finally setting foot on the island. There was something else, too, a voice breathing over her in the faint breeze. She liked to think it was saying Welcome home, Rebecca but it could just as easily have been saying Go home.” The islands off the west coast of Scotland can be both beautiful and inhospitable places. On one hand there is the stunning scenery, rugged coastlines, deserted beaches and, on calm sunny days, a light which seems like ... Read Review |