All the Reviews

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

Broken Silence, Helen Vivienne Fletcher

BROKEN SILENCE is the story of seventeen-year-old Kelsey, a kid who has had a lot to deal with in life. Confused and very vulnerable, she cared for her gravely ill mother until she had to go into care. Her remarried father has disappeared from her life, and Kelsey finds herself living in a scruffy flat with her brother Pete and a couple of his mates. She feels rejected by her father, in her brother's road, and she's hiding the physical signs of abuse that her boyfriend regularly doles out. Her life is a mess, and she's hurting, physically and emotionally.

The character of ... Read Review

Tess, Kirsten McDougall

A psychological suspense novel with touches of paranormal, TESS is a beautifully balanced, chilling, claustrophobic and clever novel. 

Set in small town New Zealand, at the turn of the millennium, TESS is, as the blurb puts it "a gothic love story about the ties that bind and tear a family apart." It's also a story of how rewarding an unlikely friendship can be, and about the power of connecting with the other. It's about reaching out to somebody for the sake of kindness, contact and being a human being in a world that sometimes seems committed to the other direction. ... Read Review

Painted, Kirsten McKenzie

Horror isn't a sub-genre I spend a lot of time reading, so PAINTED, being a mystery with a horror overlay, wasn't a book that came with much in the way of preconceptions or expectations. The premise is that when an extremely reclusive artist instructs a law firm on the manner in which is vast art collection is to be distributed after his death, it turns out that the original lawyer that Kubin was used to dealing with has also died, and the firm is now run by his arrogant, money-hungry, insensitive son. Who decides that the instructions from his client aren't worth bothering with, and ... Read Review

Hot Flush, Rosy Fenwicke

Comedic crime fiction has to be one of the hardest sub-genre's to pull off. Comedy is so subjective, and crime fiction often tackles tricky subject matter. Add to that a hefty supernatural component and HOT FLUSH is a book that's appealing to a specific sub-set of readers.

The central character here is the main voice, Euphemia Sage. She's a menopausal woman whose first hot-flush triggers a genetic switch that gives her supernatural powers. So the idea is that she gets super hearing ability post menopause, which then allows her to track down nefarious goings on.  ... Read Review

Agatha Raisin and the Wellspring of Death, M.C. Beaton

The reader of this site may recall that I had a flurry of listening to Agatha Raisin audio books a while ago, when seemingly trapped in never-ending long driving days. They were fun, repetitive sure, a bit on the bitchy side occasionally, and it turns out nothing like the TV series made of the same books. Which made for some amusement and confusion as THE WELLSPRING OF DEATH and THE WIZARD OF EVESHAM were aired on TV whilst I was listening to them in the car. Needless to say TV Agatha is nothing like book Agatha, and I kind of got to the stage where I preferred the TV version. Even ... Read Review

The Hidden Room, Stella Duffy

Stella Duffy was absent from the crime writing scene for a long time until THE HIDDEN ROOM was released in 2017. The book then made the shortlist for the 2018 Ngaio Marsh Awards, because, in a nutshell, Duffy knows how to develop strong, realistic characters, and weave them into a plot that's clever, well paced and intriguing.

Classified as "domestic noir", this is a story about things very close to home. In this case Laurie (born in China / adopted by a US family) spent her childhood in the American desert, her family members of a secretive cult. Years later, she and her ... Read Review