All the Reviews

A Quiet Belief in Angels, R.J. Ellory

Don't let the synopsis mislead you - this is not really a book about a group of children, nor is it necessarily a book about a murder investigation.  This is a book about Joseph Calvin Vaughan and how events shape him.  From the death of his father when Joseph is only 11; through the beginning of the unknown killers vicious killing spree; the long-term hospitalisation / sanctioning of his mother; his love life; his loss - the reader travels with Joseph as he attempt to make sense of the world around him.

It seems to move incredibly slowly as Joseph's life ebbs and flows ... Read Review

Appeal Denied, Peter Corris

When Hardy got himself into hot water in THE UNDERTOW, you just had to wonder if this was the end of Sydney's most famous hard-boiled detective.  In APPEAL DENIED he doesn't get his licence to be a private investigator back; he's got no money; his house and car are falling apart and his love life takes a disastrous turn.  But it takes more than murder, bureaucracy and falling down houses to keep Cliff down.  Sort of.

In typical Cliff Hardy style APPEAL DENIED has events that really should see a hard man give up slightly, but when murder gets very very close to home, Cliff ... Read Review

A Cure for All Diseases, Reginald Hill

To begin with, I have one confession and one warning. Reginald Hill is my absolute favourite author.  I could read his shopping list and rave about it, so I have no pretence here of objectivity.

Now the warning. If you have yet to read Reginald Hill’s DEATH OF DALZIEL (published in the U.S.A. under the title Death Comes for the Fat Man) then stop right now. Don’t read any further, because it is impossible to write a review of A CURE FOR ALL DISEASES without creating a spoiler for Hill’s previous Dalziel and Pascoe novel.

Book Review:

In the ... Read Review

Cross, Ken Bruen

Jack Taylor is changing. Shattered by the shooting of Cody, the young man who came to him for a chance, Jack feels for Cody like a man would for his natural son. Cody is comatose in hospital and even though he didn't pull the trigger, Jack feels responsible for Cody's fate. This has given him a real reason and he's given up drinking, smoking and drugs. Jack's not pretending - it's hard, and he's not found an exactly “normal” way of resisting a drink, but he's serious and he's really trying.

As usual with Jack he's pulled into strange events and strange places. A young boy ... Read Review

A Stain on the Silence, Andrew Taylor

James and Nicky are a happily married couple, no kids, new big fancy house, everything seemingly idyllic between them. Until the day that James receives a call on his mobile: “Jamie .... It's me!”. The only woman who has ever called him Jamie was Lily Murthington. When James was a young boy his father was killed in a car accident and his mother worked overseas, eventually remarrying. James was bundled off to boarding school where he met Carlo Murthington. Carlo had a younger sister, Felicity and a stepmother – Lily. James spent a lot of school holidays with the Murthington family, but ... Read Review

Alone in the Dark, Elaine Coffman

Ellery O'Brien is a news anchor for a major programme in Washington DC. Successful, very attractive and seemingly with everything she could wish for, she is astounded when her father, dying from cancer, tells her not only is he not her biological father, but that she has a twin sister. The girls were separated at birth, Ellery staying with her mother, whilst her sister was taken by their father – married to somebody else at the time the girls were born. Ellery's mother died when she was very young and her father has kept the secret as a promise to his wife for all these years. ... Read Review

A Certain Justice, P.D. James

Venetia Aldridge QC, distinguished barrister, is found dead in her Middle Temple Chambers, stabbed once cleanly through the heart; sat in her chair; wearing a full wig covered in blood.

She had recently successfully defended Garry Ashe, accused of killing his aunt, and has been horrified by the announcement that Ashe and her troublesome daughter Octavia plan to marry. The current Head of Middle Temple Chambers is about to retire and Venetia believed she had a right to the position, despite just a few scant weeks of seniority. She was planning big disruptive changes in ... Read Review

Hidden, Katy Gardner

Mel Stenning has been a victim most of her life. Adopted by very conventional parents, she rebelled (but hated herself for doing it), getting into all sorts of situations and ultimately ending up in Australia, pregnant with no chance of having anything to do with her daughter Poppy's father. Returning to England she's a single mother, working for a living, finding it hard to cope, when she meets Simon. Never really convinced that Simon loves her, and constantly obsessed that he's remained involved with his last girlfriend Rosa, Mel is pregnant again. When Simon proposes, they marry ... Read Review

Behind the Night Bazaar, Angela Savage

Angela Savage won the Victorian Premiers Literary Award for Best Unpublished Manuscript by Emerging Author in 2004 for this book, then called Thai Died.

Jayne Keeney is an expat Australian woman who, in order to avoid a predictable life, left Australia and started teaching English in Thailand. Whilst helping out a student by doing some surveillance on a cheating partner she discovers she has quite a flair for detecting, and that there is a demand for this type of service. She gives up teaching and sticks to working as a private detective in Bangkok doing a good trade in ... Read Review