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Christmas is Murder, Val McDermid16/12/2013 - 1:52pmDiscovered this little grab of two short stories whilst wandering around the KOBO site recently (love love love my Android Tablet and the way I can have multiple bookshops at my fingertips), but I saw this and thought I've not read any early Val McDermid stories for a long time, so why not. The best thing about this is that idea of going back to the starting out of a character and a series. I don't think, by any stretch of the imagination, that you could suggest these are the most indepth, intricate and complicated plots that you've ever read in crime fiction, but they ... Read Review |
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13 Shots of Noir, Paul D. Brazill09/12/2013 - 6:03pmDark, funny, dark, clever, funny, dark and absolutely brilliant, 13 SHOTS OF NOIR is a short story collection blurbed as in the "vein of Roald Dahl". I need to go back and read Dahl. Unless Brazill's got more of these collections. Short, sharp and lyrical, these are dark dark dark little morsels, gloriously British in feel, funny where required, poignant where appropriate. Cleverly balanced between sharply observant and a bit of sly commentary on the "human condition", there's really not a bad one in the bunch here. It made me laugh, and made me think all at the same time ... Read Review |
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Sinister Intent, Karen M. Davies03/12/2013 - 4:28pmAccording to her bio author Karen M Davis was a New South Wales police officer for twenty years. Starting her career on the streets of Newtown, she went on to work as a detective and undercover operative in a variety of sections, all of which specialised in the investigation of organised crime. You can tell when you're reading SINISTER INTENT that the author knows what she's writing about very well. She also knows how to tell a yarn. In amongst the obvious parallels between the author's career and that of the central character, Lexie Rogers, there's also a sneaking ... Read Review |
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Gentlemen Formerly Dressed, Sulari Gentill25/10/2013 - 1:12pmThe Rowland Sinclair series is up to book number five with the release of GENTLEMEN FORMERLY DRESSED, yet somehow it feels like there should be more of them. That could simply be wishful thinking. There is much to be admired about these books. The plots are clever and believable. Whilst the subject matter can be sobering, it's delivered with a light touch, drawing out the amusing where appropriate. There is a very strong sense of place, and the time period in which the action occurs. In the case of GENTLEMEN FORMERLY DRESSED and the previous book PAVING THE NEW ROAD that ... Read Review |
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A Hand in the Bush, Jane Clifton23/10/2013 - 2:10pmA HAND IN THE BUSH is the second of Jane Clifton's books re-released as ebooks. Cleverly, albeit loosely connected to HALF PAST DEAD by one of the supporting characters, the focus of this book is Decca Brand, psychologist, divorcee and woman with attitude. Whilst all of Clifton's books rely heavily on realistic female characters, and could possibly be classified as on the lighter side of crime fiction, they aren't fluffy or overtly cosy. In the second book from this author, there's a real sense of somebody who is hitting their writing straps. The central character here, ... Read Review |
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Zero at the Bone, David Whish-Wilson17/09/2013 - 9:24pmIn Zero at the Bone, the second book in this series, Frank Swann has moved more sideways than on. Working as a PI, he finds himself dragged into the suicide of geologist Max Henderson, whose wife Jennifer enlists Swann’s services to find out the reasons for his death – there is no doubt about the manner of it. Full Review: http://newtownreviewofbooks.com/2013/09/17/crime-scene-david- ... Read Review |
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A Trifle Dead, Livia Day17/09/2013 - 4:56pmTabitha Darling is the daughter of a recently demised, much missed police superintendent and his wife, a recently moved to Queensland, much missed cook for the local police station. She's trying to run her own dessert destination café in the centre of Hobart, but no matter how hard she tries to adjust the menu to suit the sort of clientele she'd like to be attracting, the place is overrun with police nostalgic for canteen style pies. She's also only slightly reluctant to leap into the role of accidental detective when a rather bizarre death is discovered in the flat ... Read Review |
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Harry Curry - Rats and Mice, Stuart Littlemore17/09/2013 - 12:43pmIt’s not really surprising that Stuart Littlemore, well-known legal counsel, would attempt Australia’s answer to Rumpole of the Bailey in a series based on cases where the Defence (in the guise of Harry Curry) rides to victory on the back of some cunning goings-on in the trial courts of NSW. Full Review: http://newtownreviewofbooks.com/2013/09/17/crime-scene-david-whish-wilson-zero-at ... Read Review |
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The Hanging, Lotte Hammer & Søren Hammer14/07/2013 - 3:29pmNormally when I get to the stage of actually finishing up a review and publishing it, I've had a good long think, a work through the notes I take as I read, and have formed an opinion that I'm confident I can support. I therefore cannot, for the life of me work out, why THE HANGING still has me unsure. A confrontational plot, THE HANGING starts out with a death scene that's particularly uncomfortable. The possible reason for the death of five men, left hanging in a school gym, comes much later, with the likely motive a long time before a possible perpetrator. Of course, ... Read Review |
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A Darkness Descending, Christobel Kent12/07/2013 - 2:34pmA DARKNESS DESCENDING is the fourth book from Christobel Kent featuring ex-cop, now private detective Sandro Cellini. As this is the first from the series I've tried, I'm guessing that you may have to start from the beginning to get a handle on the who and hows of these characters. Of course it doesn't help that there's a bit of an expectation nowadays that Italian Crime Fiction is going to include fabulous food, a grumpy central detective, an immersion-like sense of place or some combination thereof, but for some reason I struggled with this book. In the ... Read Review |
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Hindsight, Melanie Casey08/07/2013 - 12:07pmSaw this book referred to somewhere as CSI meets Medium in print. Which will mean something to exactly the sort of readers that HINDSIGHT is pitched directly at. Needless to say that's not me. Whilst my paranormal allergy has been mitigated slightly over the years by some extremely good books, it alas hasn't stopped the scratching when the story is 100% built around the paranormal aspects being such a central investigative tool. Granted in HINDSIGHT the local cops also start off not that impressed with the idea that Cass Lehman can see violent pasts as she moves into the ... Read Review |
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A Bitter Taste, Annie Hauxwell04/07/2013 - 3:46pmThe second in a series set in London and a debut legal thriller show some of the exciting variety of Australian crime fiction on offer. Review at: http://newtownreviewofbooks.com/2013/07/04/crime-scene-annie-hauxwell-a-bitter-taste-alex-hammond-blood-witness-reviewed-by-karen-chisholm/Read Review |
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Blood Witness, Alex Palmer04/07/2013 - 2:22pmThe legal thriller is a fairly common sub-genre overseas, but Alex Hammond’s Blood Witness is the first of this sort of book from a local writer for quite a while. Full review at http://newtownreviewofbooks.com/2013/07/04/crime-scene-annie-hauxwell-a-bitter-taste-alex-hammond-blood-witness-reviewed-by-karen-chisholm/Read Review |
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The Devil's Sanctuary, Marie Hermanson26/06/2013 - 3:09pmThe back of THE DEVIL'S SANCTUARY says that it has the atmosphere of Shutter Island and the intensity of Jussi Adler-Olsen so I was expecting something... well big. And for quite a while this was a fascinating scenario. Estranged identical twins, Daniel and Max, were parted by their parents separation when they were very young. Daniel had a fairly normal, if not slightly doted on upbringing by his mother and her parents, Max not quite as lucky staying with his distant father and raised mostly by a nanny. Nothing particularly unusual in that, although Max has been ... Read Review |
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Bay of Fires, Poppy Gee07/05/2013 - 1:15pmIt is possible that the reader of a lot of mystery fiction could come to BAY OF FIRES with a predisposition to like it very much. It's an unusual twist on what is, frequently, a rather formulaic style. More importantly, it's a lot more about the people involved in a community than the tragic death. The story revolves around Sarah Avery, who was second on the scene when the bikini-clad body is found on the beach. She and her family are long-term holiday residents at the Bay of Fires, so they were there the year before when a young girl went missing. As were a lot of the ... Read Review |
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The Midnight Promise, Zane Lovitt30/04/2013 - 4:02pmOn page 2 of this book I kind of got the feeling that we'd be destined to get on very well....
The sort of dry sense of humour that works for this reader at least. Subtitled a detective's story in ten cases, this is the tale of the life and times of John Dorn. Private Inquiry Agent because that's what his ... Read Review |
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Mad Men, Bad Girls and the Guerrilla Knitters Institute, Maggie Groff27/04/2013 - 2:30pmI am a bit of a sucker for a daft title, even though it frequently explodes in my face. Even then, it did come as somewhat of a surprise to be reading a knitting type book (no patterns ... there are limits). The reason I picked up MAD MEN, BAD GIRLS AND THE GUERRILLA KNITTERS INSTITUTE is pretty simple really - a bit of little light relief after a row of heavy, thought provoking books. Exercise distraction therapy... whatever. Regardless of why I picked this book up, have to say, was pleasantly surprised. A particular surprise as even though the ground is pretty liberally ... Read Review |
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Antidote to Murder, Felicity Young24/04/2013 - 1:38pmANTIDOTE TO MURDER is the second Dr Dody McCleland book from WA based author Felicity Young. If this is a series that you are yet to catch up with, then all I can say is get to it. Immediately. Set in Edwardian London, McCleland is a qualified doctor, fighting a society that has some very confronting attitudes towards women, in particular. To remain working as a doctor, McCleland has to battle daily against mindless prejudice and power games. To simply survive many more women are fighting a similar battle. Particularly any poor woman who is unlucky enough to be single, ... Read Review |
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Call Me Cruel, Michael Duffy28/03/2013 - 1:43pmThis true crime account attempts to explain the mind of a manipulative killer. It’s a cliché, but in this case it’s apt; if you came across a scenario like this in crime fiction you’d be hard pressed to stop your eyes from rolling. As is often the way, however, true life defies anything the very best fiction writers can come up with. Reviewed for The Newtown Review of BooksRead Review |
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Blind Goddess, Anne Holt26/03/2013 - 3:18pmThe Hanne Wilhelmsen series from Norwegian author Anne Holt is another one of those Scandinavian series that have been translated completely out of order. For reasons which, as usual, escape me completely. So <insert standard whinge about how profoundly annoying that is>, and onto BLIND GODDESS which is the book that started the whole thing off. It would be bad enough to discover a battered body when jogging in the morning, but you'd doubt lawyer Karen Borg would also have been expecting to be called in as defence counsel for the Dutchman who is found wandering, ... Read Review |