Book Review

A Time to Run, J.M. Peace

13/08/2015 - 5:14pm

There's a lot of crime fiction out there that is all about the investigator and the protagonist, but A TIME TO RUN tips that right on it's ear, setting up a scenario in which an investigator (cop) is the next victim of a mad, dangerous man who makes a sport out of hunting down the women he's abducted.

So, not a book for those readers that find that concept of the randomly selected victim and the barking mad, vicious killer too much. Particularly as this killer is appalling and very clever about it. It's not until a cop goes missing that a very dedicated policewoman sees ... Read Review

Australia's Most Murderous Prison: Behind the Walls of Goulburn Jail, James Phelps

12/08/2015 - 2:09pm

A book where the title is utterly unambiguous, AUSTRALIA'S MOST MURDEROUS PRISON is about Goulburn Jail. It refers to events in the jail as much as many of it's inmates crimes. It is also provides a brief history of the construction, background and management of the jail, where the worst of NSW inmates invariably end up.

Written in a light style that initially might seem almost irreverent, it works incredibly well when it comes to relating many of the events that occur within the jail, and in particular when discussing the "activities" of some of the more notorious ... Read Review

Double Madness, Caroline de Costa

06/08/2015 - 3:18pm

The author of DOUBLE MADNESS, Caroline de Costa is a professor at the School of Medicine at James Cook University in Cairns, and the book is set amongst the medical profession, in Cairns. Writing obviously about a couple of worlds that she knows well, this debut novel combines a strong sense of the place, and the climate, with a well-delivered intricate plot.

The body of Odile Janvier is found deep in the rainforest outside Cairns by sheer chance when local doctor Tim Ingram and his wife take a very unlikely shortcut, a little known back track which is a dodgy proposition ... Read Review

Fast and Loose, Nicholas J. Johnson

05/08/2015 - 1:12pm

Readers were introduced to Joel Fitch and his mentor Richard Mordecai in the first book of this series, CHASING THE ACE. This second book, FAST AND LOOSE, starts up where the first left off, with Fitch and Mordecai parted ways, and Fitch left holding the cash. Rather a lot of cash straight out of Mordecai's life long ill-gotten gains. Fitch's not altogether comfortable with this as the double-cross he thought caused their split, wasn't at all, and he feels very guilty that his old friend and teacher is now on the lam.

Fitch has led a fractured sort of a life, so it makes ... Read Review

Kingdom of the Strong, Tony Cavanaugh

04/08/2015 - 4:56pm

KINGDOM OF THE STRONG is the fourth Darian Richards novel from screenwriter, producer and novelist Tony Cavanaugh. Readers of the past novels will be aware of the background of Richards. A high ranking cop in Victoria for many years, he has a darker side, with a history of ensuring justice for victims even if it means he steps into the role of avenging angel. Readers of the earlier books will also be aware of a tendency towards the barking mad, evil, utterly over the top, random serial killer. Which, frankly, made this reader struggle with them, no matter how compelling a character ... Read Review

Disgrace, Jussi Adler-Olsen

30/07/2015 - 3:35pm

DISGRACE is the second book in the Danish series featuring Carl Mørck, who heads Copenhagen's cold case squad. A department made up of one very grumpy, sidelined cop; one civilian assistant who used to be the cleaner, and as of DISGRACE, one secretary who seems to have been shunted down to the basement with the other two because she's caused havoc everywhere else.

If you've not read the earlier book - THE KEEPER OF LOST CAUSES - a little background of the characters. Mørck is wonderfully cynical, grumpy and tricky to get on with. Which doesn't seem to worry his Syrian ... Read Review

Double Exposure, Kat Clay

15/07/2015 - 3:13pm

The Crime Factory have developed a reputation for publishing wonderful examples of modern noir fiction set in different locations and times. DOUBLE EXPOSURE is, however, a very different animal indeed, combining a past time frame (1948) with a dark and very atmospheric sense of place, and a hefty dose of the paranormal. Which obviously isn't going to be for all readers, but for those that are interested in something different and very well done, then DOUBLE EXPOSURE is well worth reading time.

The Photographer, never named, is centre of all of the action in this taut ... Read Review

Dead Guilty (aka An Act of Reparation), Susan Godenzi

13/07/2015 - 1:41pm

Originally published under the title AN ACT OF REPARATION, DEAD GUILTY uses the complex subject of domestic abuse as a vehicle to explore the ongoing abuse and exploitation of women in very vulnerable situations.

Starting out with the murder of an abusive husband Sean Laidlaw, journalist Lexie Reed stumbles upon the subsequent disappearance of his wife and daughter's from a local crisis shelter. Whilst the police are initially focused on the murder, which was caused a particularly brutal head-injury inflicted by a wood splitter, they are forced by Reed's discoveries to ... Read Review

Before It Breaks, Dave Warner

10/07/2015 - 4:34pm

Sometimes the world is very kind to a dedicated fan of Australian Crime fiction, particularly when two new books from authors that we've not heard from for a very long time arrive. Peter Doyle and Dave Warner each played their part, many years ago, in engaging an interest in our own stories and voices.

The release of BEFORE IT BREAKS caused excitement and slight trepidation. Slight trepidation because Warner's earlier Andrew "Lizard" Zirk series (Murder in the GrooveMurder in the Frame and Murder Off-Season) has always been a nostalgic ... Read Review

After the Crash, Michel Bussi

26/06/2015 - 3:24pm

AFTER THE CRASH opens with private eye Credule Grand-Duc preparing to take his own life after spending nearly eighteen years failing to discover the truth behind the miracle of the baby who survived a plane crash. Preparing his papers for handover, and setting the scene for his dramatic final act, he contemplates once more the front page from the local newspaper the day that the crash happened. And suddenly realises he finally knows the answer.

Occurring at a time well before the advent of DNA testing, any chance of establishing the parentage of the baby at the ... Read Review

Black Widow, Carol Baxter

23/06/2015 - 5:15pm

The second book from this author I've now read, I'm growing to increasingly like the manner in which she tells her true stories. Woven into a narrative that reads like a tall tale but true, BLACK WIDOW isn't a dry retelling of facts. Having said that, there appears to be sufficient research and veracity in the facts of the case to make it all the more shocking.

Louisa Collins was executed in Sydney, the first female "serial killer" in colonial Australian history. There is so much in this story that seems wrong. For a start there seems to be major question marks ... Read Review

Fireplay, Steve P. Vincent

07/06/2015 - 2:02pm

Housekeeping first - FIREPLAY (Jack Emery) 0.5 is the novella based prequel to THE FOUNDATION, but released after the first full-length novel came out. The action in FIREPLAY clears up some of the backstory in THE FOUNDATION, but it doesn't matter a jot what order you read them in.

Having started with THE FOUNDATION, FIREPLAY was much appreciated. Nicely balanced between filling in some of the back story of protagonist Jack Emery, and telling a tale in it's own right, again we've got a tale that could come direct from real-life.

Embedded in Afghanistan ... Read Review

Drowned Vanilla, Livia Day

22/05/2015 - 5:05pm

Slightly girly, crazy comic crime fiction is not my normal cup of tea, and add a plethora of recipes and this reader should, by rights, be groaning and moaning and whinging. But not with The Culinary Crime / Café La Femme series of which DROWNED VANILLA is the second book. (As opposed to THE BLACKMAIL BLEND 1.5 which is a collection of short stories).

Pitched at a very particular market this isn't indepth, psychological analysis of crime and consequences. If anything more time and effort is devoted to the search for the perfect Ice-Cream recipe than is expended on the ... Read Review

Can You Keep a Secret?, Caroline Overington

20/05/2015 - 2:37pm

Commencing a blurb with a question implies that somewhere along the line the book will provide an answer. In the case of CAN YOU KEEP A SECRET? "Why do some people decide to get married when everyone around them would seem to agree that marriage, at least for the two people in question is a terrifically bad idea?" didn't ever seem to be asked, let alone answered.

It is, however, the story of a car crash of a marriage, but not whether or not two people are suited. It is even the story of how one partner does or doesn't cope at the rapid mental disintegration of the other. ... Read Review

Only the Brave, Mel Sherratt

18/05/2015 - 6:13pm

The third in the DS Allie Shenton series, readers might be best served to have at least read one of the earlier books (this reviewer has read FOLLOW THE LEADER only and that helped make sense of a lot of the sub-plot elements).

Whilst the main plot of ONLY THE BRAVE is the bashing, then stabbing murder of a notorious local identity, his connections to the underworld family that forms a big part of Shenton's background might need a bit of filling from the earlier books to make sense. There are complications aplenty in this death - and not just the missing ... Read Review

Already Dead, Jaye Ford

15/05/2015 - 12:53pm

When Miranda Jack is car-jacked on a motorway in Sydney it's just one more thing to go wrong in a life littered with bad times. As the story progresses and you find out how many hurdles Jack has jumped in her life you'd be forgiven for wondering why she keeps getting up in the morning. When something in her background and training as a journalist makes her seek to empathise with her abductor, that idea of keep them talking and engaged and they may develop some connection with you, it means she finds out quite a bit about Brendan Walsh. Including that they have met before, but not who ... Read Review

Blurline, TW Lawless

13/05/2015 - 1:01pm

The third in the Peter Clancy series, BLURLINE takes Clancy to swinging London and the edges of the "red-top" newspaper world. Granted he headed there with high hopes of getting a job in slightly more salubrious circumstances, but needs must and when the money starts running low, a reputation built on the back of The Truth newspaper in Melbourne isn't going to help when it comes to "serious newspapers".

When Clancy lands himself a job on one of the even lesser of the lesser scandal rags, he ends up posing as a biographer ghostwriter, supposedly helping well known, and ... Read Review

High Beam, sj Brown

13/05/2015 - 1:00pm

A debut novel, HIGH BEAM is set in Hobart, Tasmania featuring DI John Mahoney. Mahoney has recently returned to his hometown and is an unhappy man in his personal and professional lives. The death of high profile victim Brad Finch doesn't make him any happier what with time pressures from above, intense media interest and a lot of shady goings on in the world of the Tassie Devils Football Club and the business interests of its board and supporters.

Non-fans of football might find it hard to understand why it is that a football club can be the centre of such power and ... Read Review

Homecountry, TW Lawless

05/05/2015 - 1:33pm

The first of the Peter Clancy books from T.W. Lawless, HOMECOUNTRY takes Clancy to exactly that - home to the town where he grew up, in outback Queensland to bury his mother. With his credo of never looking back this is the first time he's returned to Clarke's Flat since he left, so for the first time he's forced to confront many of the reasons why he left in the first place. And it's not a comfortable outlook.

There's much that's happened in his home town to him, to his family and to friends and people who are still in town. There's questions around his own father's ... Read Review

A Time of Secrets, Deborah Burrows

04/05/2015 - 3:11pm

Nobody could be more startled than me when declaring that A TIME OF SECRETS was a most enjoyable book to read. Startled because ostensibly it looks, feels, smells like a romance. With an historical bent, and some mystery within.

Certainly in reading this book the romance is foremost in the narrative, equalled by the difficulties of living within war-footing Melbourne, followed eventually by the mystery of the traitor within the ranks of the Australian Intelligence Bureau. What makes that balance work is probably the historical background though. Romance in that day makes ... Read Review

Pages