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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 |
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Dark Horse, Honey Brown07/05/2013 - 3:17pmA classic of foreboding and suspense set in the Victorian High Country. Full review at The Newtown Review of Books: http://newtownreviewofbooks.com/2013/05/07/crime-scene-honey-brown-dark-horse-reviewed-by-karen-chisholm/Read Review |
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Coorparoo Blues & The Irish Fandango, G.S. Manson07/05/2013 - 2:37pmTwo novellas, connected by PI Jack Munro, COORPAROO BLUES and THE IRISH FANDANGO are an interesting historical hard-boiled combination of PI, mean streets, fallen women, drinking and the whole nine yards. The first story, COORPAROO BLUES, introduces Jack, war veteran, ex-cop, nose for trouble, attractor of a simply staggering number of women, PI that you turn to when things are going to get nasty. The second story, set a few months later, sees the US troop angle switched for political refugees and Communists around every corner, and a suicide that isn't. ... 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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Hal Spacejock, Simon Haynes03/04/2013 - 3:15pmI realise the idea of me actually exercising is going to stretch the imaginations of one or two people, but sometimes, I do attempt a little bit. Not often and certainly none of that raising a sweat panting and puffing palaver. If I can't read a book while I'm doing it, I'm not doing it. And HAL SPACEJOCK was a rather good book to choose. Although I'm not sure that "perfect for when you're exercising" is going to be a description that anybody's going to be drawn to... Funny, silly, touching in places, the first book in the series is a bit of a ... 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 |
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Close to the Bone, Stuart MacBride25/03/2013 - 3:49pmLook, let's just admit that I'm a huge fan of this series and get it over and done with. Love DI Steel, love her glorious over the topness, love McRae's constant sooking and all being put upon. Love the madness of the world in which they have to try to operate as functioning police members, love the supporting cast, love the gallows humour. Love the whole damn thing. Even love those that don't quite live up to the other books in the series (and let's face it - we're talking bees d's worth of not living up to that which came before). I'll therefore plead to some lacking in ... Read Review |
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Murder With the Lot, Sue Williams13/03/2013 - 1:46pmMURDER WITH THE LOT is set in the fictional Mallee town of Rusty Bore, featuring Cass Tuplin, fish and chip shop owner, mother, and self-appointed private investigator. The story is told all from Cass's viewpoint, a viewpoint which is somewhat skewed towards a ... how should we put this ... less than realistic outlook. Not only is the Mallee still deep in the middle of the drought that just about broke everyone's spirit, but Rusty Bore is a town that's been hit particularly hard. Loss of people to the "Big Smoke" just down the road, loss of passing traffic, loss of money and even ... Read Review |
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Dogstar Rising, Parker Bilal20/02/2013 - 1:58pmSummer (northern hemisphere), 2001, and religious and political tensions in Egypt form the basis of the second Makana crime novel by Parker Bilal. Whilst there's nothing new in the use of crime fiction as the vehicle for exploring society on the edge, DOGSTAR RISING set, as it is, in that place at that time, provides an illuminating alternative viewpoint. Not automatically that of the "opposing", it is a look at pressures and perspectives from another angle. It's edgy fiction based in a very edgy world. Whilst it's obvious to Makana, Private Investigator and Sudanese ... Read Review |
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Eugenia, Mark Tedeschi QC17/01/2013 - 1:21pmI really think that whenever I feel like a bit of a whinge about the way life is these days, I should read a book like EUGENIA. Eugenia Falleni was a woman born into a large Italian Family, who grew up in New Zealand, and spent most of her all too short life in Australia, living most of it as a man. Mark Tedeschi QC looks at what happened to Eugenia in her early life, a rape and subsequent birth of a daughter which complicated her life even more, how she functioned in day-to-day life, her first marriage and the death of her wife for which she was charged with murder, ... Read Review |
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Furt Bent from Aldaheit, Jack Eden16/01/2013 - 1:56pmYou know how the rule goes, you're not supposed to barrack for the "bad guy", but seriously there's no way I wasn't totally and absolutely on Osgood Sneddon's side from the start. I mean Osgood? No wonder he uses the jokingly dubbed alias of Furt Bent from Aldaheit. Which is just silly, even if you can pronounce Aldaheit and goodness knows I changed my mind a 1000 times about how to. When I wasn't being thoroughly and completely entertained by FURT BENT FROM ALDAHEIT that is. It's a book that combines good pace and action with a dry and quite dark sense of humour, ... Read Review |
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Young Philby, Robert Littell14/01/2013 - 4:08pmYou can't help thinking that this is an interesting idea for a book, the story of one of the most famous real-life spies, told from the point of view of Philby's own life. Now the book and it's publicity material is quite tricky about the background of this book. Whilst there's nothing there to indicate whether or not this is a true story or fictional, it's written in a way that implies that the whole thing is the true story of Kim Philby's early years. YOUNG PHILBY is however, a novel. It expands on what is known about Philby's life after Cambridge University (where he, ... Read Review |
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Dead by Friday, Derek Pedley03/01/2013 - 4:30pmI'd never heard of the death of Carolyn Matthews until I found out about Derek Pedley's book DEAD BY FRIDAY. In one way, I wish I still hadn't as this has to be, without a doubt, one of the most pointless, selfish, stupid, idiotic, inexplicable and flat out unbelievable crimes from a city that seems to specialise in them. In another, it's been a succinct reminder for a reader of a lot of fictional crime that real life can beat the fictional for weirdness hands down. (DISCLAIMER: I did generate the ebook version of this manuscript for Derek Pedley, with no obligation ... Read Review |
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The Dunbar Case, Peter Corris03/01/2013 - 1:00pmI'm really not sure how Peter Corris, or Cliff Hardy manage to keep up the pace, but I'm very very relieved they do, as the New Year tradition of a new Cliff Hardy book, a couch and the Test Cricket on the radio has become rather important over the last few years. One of the most interesting aspects of THE DUNBAR CASE is the nature of the investigation - uncovering the mysteries of a nineteenth-century shipwreck isn't the sort of case that you'd expect to find in a modern day PI style novel. But as is often the way, it doesn't really matter what Hardy is called upon to ... Read Review |
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August Heat, Andrea Camilleri22/12/2012 - 11:50amIt's hard not to sympathise with Montalbano about the heat. Especially as I sit here trying to write this note on a 38°C day. With a worse one to come. It's something that was really particularly marked in this book - the way the heat became a part of the story, just as the sense of place, and character is so very strong. You could see Montalbano and his colleagues slogging out an investigation in the dreadful heat. You could sympathise with him when the holiday house from hell reared its ugly head, and you definitely could understand how he might be tempted by the twin-sister of the ... Read Review |