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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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Dead Line, Chris Ewan01/11/2013 - 2:17pmDaniel Trent is a hostage negotiator, working alongside fiancée Aimee, but he could not have expected Aimee to go missing, or his chief suspect to be kidnapped as well. All of which is setup with breathtaking speed in DEAD LINE, dragging the reader into the story from the very first page, and not letting up until the end. Every now and again I did find myself rechecking the opening pages though - the sense of pace, the tension and the sheer wild ride of DEAD LINE didn't seem like THE DEAD THIEF'S GUIDE series at all. And I really liked those books from this author. There' ... 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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Flush, Jane Clifton23/10/2013 - 1:46pmListening to the radio recently I heard Jane Clifton talking about the thought process behind FLUSH. The end of a long term drought in Melbourne, watching a river running fast, and thinking "What If...". What if a body flushed into the river? What if the cover up of a murder can be derailed by an extreme weather event? What if that body, and that weather event, could provide a pointer to a location, and from there a killer? The exploration of "What If" can be as interesting for the reader as the why and who. In real life as in fiction, it seems a lot of the undoing of the ... Read Review |
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Death on Demand, Paul Thomas16/10/2013 - 2:59pmDEATH ON DEMAND came out in 2012 and it is impossible not to question sanity. It sat in my reading queue for over a year before daylight finally dawned. Needless to say a lot of other worthy books were swept aside, because it's nearly impossible not to love these books. Partly because Tito is such a believable character - even as cop turned vigilante. Actually Ihaka as a vigilante almost sounds right. He's a man with a finally developed sense of justice and a rather ruthless attitude to providing same. There is a strong sense of place built into these books ... 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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Drive By, Michael Duffy06/08/2013 - 12:21pmDRIVE BY is fiction although readers may find themselves having to work hard to remember that. From the opening voice of Jabber (John) Habib to the build up of mayhem on the streets of Sydney, obviously comparisons are being drawn between Melbourne's Underbelly Underworld wars and the increasingly violent, and therefore reported on, drug wars in Sydney. The story of John Habib, his brothers, their involvement in the Sydney drugs trade, and the murder trial of the youngest brother, is interwoven with the story of young cop Bec Ralston. Somewhat inexplicably she's pulled ... 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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Deadly Australian Women, Kay Saunders08/07/2013 - 2:49pmIt's discomforting to read these sorts of books. They are the stories of women who have murdered and whilst some of these women were undoubtedly guilty, the tales of the desperate, the poor, abused and betrayed make it hard not to look rather critically at society "norms" and behaviours. Perhaps that's what's important about these sorts of books.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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Dusty Dexter PI: Her First Case, Jan Richards08/07/2013 - 11:58amI think I read somewhere that DUSTY DEXTER PI - HER FIRST CASE started life as a newspaper serial, which if that is the case, makes it the second of this sort of book I've read coming out of Queensland this year. Although this isn't a series of short stories, it's the story of an entire investigation. The blurb is going to give you a tiny little bit of a hint about the style of this book. It's light-hearted, chick-mystery, accidental, mildly clumsy, enthusiastic rather than necessarily highly skilled, female PI. With surgically enhanced boobs (you'll have to read the book ... 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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Deadly Harvest, Michael Stanley05/06/2013 - 2:48pmSome of the very best crime fiction explores issues that are relevant to the society in which it is set. Michael Stanley's Kubu series, set in Botswana seems to have really hit its straps in that department in the last couple of books, with DEADLY HARVEST reaching a particular high. The fourth book in the Detective Kubu series, here the author(s) are exploring the disappearance of a number of young girls. The suspicion is that these girls are the victims of a powerful, unknown witchdoctor, looking for victims to incorporate in his muti, or traditional African healing, potions. ... Read Review |