All the Reviews

Black Butterfly, Mark Gatiss

BLACK BUTTERFLY is the third Secret Service novel featuring tall, dark, suave spy about town Lucifer Box. Although it will come as a bit of a shock to readers of these books to discover that Lucifer has gotten old, fast approaching retirement. Good grief! Old age comes to Lucifer Box ... who would have believed it could ever happen. Worse still, this is billed as the final of the Lucifer Box novels which is particularly sad for those readers who have come to love the overly energetic lovelife, spycraft and general man about towning of the great Lucifer Box.

But retirement ... Read Review

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

I've spent a lot of time driving recently, and these really work as a background to the endless kilometres.

Having kind of liked the TV Agatha Raisin series, I thought trying one of these as an audiobook for one of the recent long drives would be worth a go. I personally prefer things on the lighter side when I should be concentrating on driving, and a change of options was required after having spent a lot of hours with Phryne Fisher.

Obviously the Agatha Raisin of the books is nothing much like the TV version - so if you're hoping for a direct match you may ... Read Review

Clear to the Horizon, Dave Warner

Back in the late 1970's Dave Warner released music that became part of the soundtrack of my life. When I discovered CITY OF LIGHT, MURDER IN THE FRAME, EXXXPRESSO and other books by him in the late 1990's / early 2000's I was more than a bit chuffed to think a musical hero was also a lover of crime fiction. And I bloody loved all of those books.

CITY OF LIGHT was Dave Warner's first book (from memory), it won the 1996 West Australian Premier's Award for best fiction, and it introduced a young police constable, and aspiring footballer Snowy Lane. In this book Lane is ... Read Review

Sold, Blair Denholm

You have to admire any author who doesn't just create a profoundly unlikeable protagonist but then grants them full permission to be as ordinary a human being as they can possibly be. In SOLD, Blair Denholm's creation, Gary Braswell is the sort of bloke that you'd be forgiven for belting over the head with a shovel, after watching him dig his own grave any day. 

Comic in styling, SOLD is set on the Gold Coast in the sweltering heat of summer, where Braswell takes the not-so-big step from used car salesman to real estate, at about the same time that his gambling debts are ... Read Review

Ragdoll, Daniel Cole

Frequent readers of crime fiction tend to be over some plot element or standard form or another. It's hard to avoid getting a little jaded when a particular structure shows up time and time again - and in my case it's been serial killers for sometime now. Which does at least mean that it's a discomfortingly nice surprise when you come across an interesting twist on the tired old form.

Which, of course means, that you've taken a punt on something with a blurb that's guaranteed to be off-putting. For this reader there was something about the author's bio and the blurb of ... Read Review

Dear Fatty, Dawn French

Read for f2f bookclub which meets soon, and it will be very interesting to see what the entire group makes of this.

Interesting format that means that whilst it might be a memoir, there's a lot that can be left unsaid, a lot that's glossed over or hinted at, and a lot that assumes the reader has some knowledge of Dawn French's life already.

Fair enough I thought - it must be a very uncomfortable thing to sit down and write about your life, especially some very personal and private moments. Particularly poignant to read the comments about now ex-husband Lenny ... Read Review

The Revelations of Carey Ravine, Debra Daley

With a strong sense of place, THE REVELATIONS OF CAREY RAVINE is an interesting combination of romance, history and crime fiction. There's a lot being attempted in one novel here, and that combination of genres, and hence stylings are both the strongest and weakest points, depending upon your preferences. It's not a novel designed for readers of historical fiction alone, nor perhaps for those that read romance, or crime fiction only for that matter. 

There was a good sense of time and place in the narrative, with plenty of information about society pressures, and the ... Read Review

All Our Secrets, Jennifer Lane

If there is one thing you'll come away from ALL OUR SECRETS with, it's the voice of Gracie Barrett ringing in your ears. It's an impressive portrayal.

There's something very worrying going on in the fictional town of Coongahoola, New South Wales. It's not just The Believers (or Bleeders as they are quickly nicknamed) - a cult led by the oddly charismatic Saint Bede. Long before they arrived there was the infamous River Picnic, on the night Malcolm Fraser became Prime Minister. Stu Bailey's wife drowned in the Bagooli River and there's a group of kids around town, all born ... Read Review

An Isolated Incident, Emily Maguire

AN ISOLATED INCIDENT is one of those books I've been trying to read for a ridiculously long time now, so being able to finally get to it in the context of our f2f bookclub gathering was an added bonus.

This is such a fascinating book, one that worked particularly well for our group. Normally we find the discussion is at its most vibrant when the book isn't particularly liked, or when there is a mix of opinions, but in this case there wasn't a contradictory opinion in the room.

There's been an increase in "consequences' crime fiction recently. Books that ... Read Review