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Blood Money, Clive Small & Tom Gilling07/07/2017 - 4:30pmBLOOD MONEY, written by Clive Small and Tom Gilling, looks at the world of organised crime in current-day Australia - New South Wales in particular. Post the demise of the better known gangs, post the demise of the "gentleman" criminal, this book looks closely at a new wave of gangland bosses, and the ruthless way in which they will form alliances and break the old rules to gain or hold onto power. The book starts off providing a cast of the major characters and the gangs that they belong to. It then moves into a series of chapters based around particular people and their ... Read Review |
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Talk to Me, Neil Coleman06/07/2017 - 2:42pmAn interesting idea that takes off from page one, involving a talk back radio host. Tongue in cheek in style, there's an unlikeable central character and a tell don't show style - mimicking that idea of talk back. The telling of the tale from a dialogue point of view starts out well, but unfortunately for this reader, that expository style quickly got tiresome, leaving the feeling that the joke's not quite strong enough to overcome an unconvincing portrayal of police attitudes and procedures, the overly convenient insertion of pet-jep and a very transparent no-name game which rang ... Read Review |
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A Briefcase, Two Pies and a Penthouse, Brannavan Gnanalingam04/07/2017 - 3:52pmThere's something deliciously intriguing about the idea that a top spy could lose a briefcase, which, rather than chock full of official secrets and classified documents, instead contains three mince pies, two fruit pies, the NZ Listener, a Penthouse magazine, and unfortunately a diary chock full of gossip. In a particularly unfortunate twist the briefcase is discovered by the son of a prominent journalist and, well things go decidedly pear-shaped. Needless to say A BRIEFCASE, TWO PIES AND A PENTHOUSE is high farce. Right from the opening as poor Rachel McManus tries to ... Read Review |
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The Student Body, Simon Wyatt29/06/2017 - 1:05pmIn case you hadn't noticed there's a number of debut novels recently out of New Zealand, often written by authors with a policing or related background, many of them telegraphing potential for interesting things to come. THE STUDENT BODY is Serious Fraud Office investigator Simon Wyatt's first novel, written while on sick leave recovering from a rare, and potentially life-threatening autoimmune disorder. The central character in this novel, Detective Sergeant Nick Knight, is a little bit different from current day crime fictional norms in that he's a young, not yet ... Read Review |
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Through a Camels Eye, Dorothy Johnston27/06/2017 - 2:47pmNot your average challenge this: "why not base a large part of your next crime fiction novel around the story of a disappearing camel". Then set it in a Victorian seaside town, with some tenuous connections to a murder victim discovered along the Murray. Luckily Dorothy Johnston seems to be made of stern stuff and great skill as she has taken this most unlikely scenario and created a page turner in THROUGH A CAMEL'S EYE that, frankly, was a standout read. Introducing two new characters - local man, long-time cop Constable Chris Blackie; and blow-in from Melbourne, rookie ... Read Review |
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The Agency, Ian Austin27/06/2017 - 2:35pmThe opening salvo in what's to be an ongoing series, THE AGENCY introduces the character of Dan Calder. Calder has joined the police force in the UK - following in his father's footsteps. His father had a successful public life and career, although the truth of their home life was very different. Ultimately, Calder finds himself on a collision course with authority, leaving the force and his home country behind, hoping to put his past behind him once and for all. After setting himself up in his new home in New Zealand, he finds himself living next door to a very welcoming ... Read Review |
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An Isolated Incident, Emily Maguire27/06/2017 - 2:09pmWouldn't be too quick to classify this one as a psychological thriller as there is very little simmering tension in watching the lead character disintegrate a little day by day. The whole tone of the book is rather desultory, which fits in well with the remote country town setting where things take a while to happen. The death of Bella is a killing without purpose and the struggle that Chris feels in carrying on with normal life is both relatable and genuine. AN ISOLATED INCIDENT has an excellent sense of place and is very easy to project yourself into the setting of the small town ... Read Review |
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A Moment's Silence, Christopher Abbey26/06/2017 - 5:27pmThere's a particularly interesting idea at the heart of A MOMENT'S SILENCE. A holidaying New Zealander makes a chance sighting out of a bus window, subsequently connecting the dots between the car he saw, and a subsequent bomb explosion. Originally reporting his suspicions in the Cotswolds village he's staying in, it's rapidly escalated to Scotland Yard when the bomber is subsequently identified but not caught. Which puts Martyn and the information he can attest to in the firing line of a very determined serial killer. The set up of this is very cleverly imagined - the ... Read Review |
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Mysterious Mysteries of the Aro Valley, Danyl McLauchlan21/06/2017 - 2:01pmThe second book from NZ based author Danyl McLauchlan MYSTERIOUS MYSTERIES OF THE ARO VALLEY follows on UNSPEAKABLE SECRETS OF THE ARO VALLEY. If this reader's experience was anything to go, it may be better to have read the first book, as there was quite a bit that remained somewhat unfathomable in this second instalment. Having said that, MYSTERIOUS MYSTERIES might be relying heavily on an in joke. Whilst the comedic farce aspect is a huge part of this novel, it also leans more towards supernatural than straight suspense or even fantasy, which means you've got a pretty ... Read Review |
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Marlborough Man, Alan Carter07/06/2017 - 2:15pmAlan Carter is the author of the Ned Kelly Award winning Cato Kwong series (PRIME CUT won the Best First Award in 2011), but MARLBOROUGH MAN features a new character - UK born, New Zealand based cop Nick Chester and his family. Chester's had an "interesting" working life - starting out as an undercover cop in the UK, ending up a country cop in Havelock in rural New Zealand as part of a witness relocation scheme when his undercover work goes decidedly pear-shaped. Even with what would seem to be the impossible task of tracking him, his wife and their young son Paulie down ... Read Review |
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A Reluctant Warrior, Kelly Brooke Nicholls06/06/2017 - 3:30pmThere's something especially sobering about crime fiction that is obviously set in such a real, contemporary and frightening scenario. A RELUCTANT WARRIOR takes the reader right into the middle of Columbia's drug wars. It takes the reader into the world of a young woman who is trying to avoid rape, murder, torture and degradation, while she also tries to keep those left in her small family alive - after the paramilitaries and the drug cartel's have already unleashed havoc upon them. As the blurb says, the story and the characters in A RELUCTANT WARRIOR are fictitious, but ... Read Review |
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Something for Nothing, Andy Muir30/05/2017 - 4:23pmAs Australian as a dingy, and dead set likely to get himself into bother, Lachie Munro is a good bloke. Sure he's an abalone poacher, but only to pay off a lapse of concentration gambling debt. And sure he and his best mate Dave don't report the giant heroin haul they find when they are out poaching off the coast of Newcastle. Of course they seem to have just enough street smarts to finagle a possible connection for flogging the heroin off as an unexpected windfall. Dave's got kids he wants to set up after all, and Lachie? Lachie wants out of this current version of his life, which ... Read Review |
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The Barista's Guide to Espionage, Dave Sinclair30/05/2017 - 4:23pmThink Bond girl who can make a mean espresso, is armed to teeth, trained to the bare minimum, and is mightily pissed off with her ex and you've got Eva Destruction. A woman with a propensity to fall for the bad boy, who thinks, for a brief time, that meeting billionaire charmer Harry Lancing might mean her streak of dead-end relationships has finally come to an end. Until he turns out to be a control-freak, super-villain with a plan to take over the world, and all sorts of ways and means of achieving it. When the good guys arrive on the scene - mostly in the person of ... Read Review |
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How I Became the Mr Big of People Smuggling, Martin Chambers30/05/2017 - 3:02pmThere must be a group of readers out there that are a sucker for a fabulous book title (or it could be a group of one) but HOW I BECAME THE MR BIG OF PEOPLE SMUGGLING is one of those eye-catching titles that luckily coincides with a terrific story. We've all done it, or dreamed of it. An adventure, a break from the day to day, and for Nick Smart it seemed like working as a jackaroo on a remote station was the perfect solution. Away from everything, a chance to save some money, maybe even some quiet time to get his head together. "I drove out of Victoria via ... Read Review |
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The Watcher, Ross Armstrong21/05/2017 - 1:14pmYou do want to Lily to succeed, as her clumsy and inept forays into investigating the murder of her neighbour are almost charming. She is a lone woman against the world and her husband is of little or no help. You do feel her frustration when the efforts of others to shut her down send her into further distress and disarray. Lily is one person who truly needs to get to the truth. The red herrings are largely due to the floundering of Lily herself and the structure of the murder mystery is not that complicated; you will need to wade in and wait quite a while for the major plot twist ... Read Review |
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Full Bore, William McInnes20/05/2017 - 3:05pmThe author, in both writing and speaking mode, is a master at going off on a tangent and then circling back to his original rumination. McInnes can be a bit Douglas Adams ala THE HITCH HIKERS GUIDE TO THE GALAXY in this regard. You get the impression that nothing is wasted in this author’s day; all his small observations of the lives of others are retained and plopped into a basket of thoughts after which any may be usefully extracted as required. Having heard him speak several times at writers’ festivals, I can happily say that he can reproduce this whip smart narration on the spot ... Read Review |
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Dead Again, Sandi Wallace08/05/2017 - 3:40pmDEAD AGAIN is the second novel in the Georgie Harvey and John Franklin series. Harvey is a Melbourne based journalist and Franklin a Daylesford based cop, and whilst it's not absolutely necessary that you've read the first book - TELL ME WHY, it would help a lot to understand why there is a connection between these two characters, and ultimately the two main locations in this book. Set around a fictionalised fire storm called in this book Red Victoria, a potential article about a small town in recovery becomes a private quest for Harvey to track down a man believed killed in the fire ... Read Review |
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Punishment, Anne Holt21/04/2017 - 12:40pmThe first of the Johanne Vik & Adam Stubø books, PUNISHMENT, is now available in paperback locally. An excellent crime fiction series by Norwegian author Anne Holt, this has been a series that could be (well had to be) read out of order. Now there's something compelling about being able to go back to the start, and work your way through. Originally read by this reviewer back in 2007, when it was newly translated, PUNISHMENT is the novel that introduces an unusual investigative (ultimately personal) coupling of academic and former FBI profiler Johanne Vik and Detective ... Read Review |
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The Girl Before, JP Delaney16/04/2017 - 1:17pmThe setting of THE GIRL BEFORE is all important and gives structure to a story that is essentially carried out with in four walls of one very spectacular and unusual house. There are shades of ‘Hal’ in this book too which are delicious, as in that an omnipresent technological mind is controlling the conditions thus manipulating the lives of the occupants of the house. Or is it really? Poor self esteem, the classic pull of the bad boy and just seriously bad taste all come together to push the sanity of both past Emma, and present Jane. Is it an insult for an untidy ... Read Review |
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The Breakdown, B.A. Paris15/04/2017 - 3:12pmThere is only a small cast in THE BREAKDOWN so our suspicious eyes are trained on characters that don’t have anywhere to hide; they are all close to Cass’s life and are becoming increasingly aware that her life is in disarray. Cass becomes more hemmed in by her memory glitches and is desperate to regain control of a life that is being puppet mastered by someone who must be close to her. THE BREAKDOWN is a very suspenseful read, tempered with periods of time where you alternately feel desperately sorry for Cass in her struggles, or frustrated with her as she seems to be going around ... Read Review |