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The Brotherhood, Y.A. Erskine01/09/2011 - 3:15pmI remember reading the first book in what is now one of my favourite series quite a few years ago, I really really hoped that the author felt better about life once they'd finished. I think the same sort of reaction to THE BROTHERHOOD bodes well for what I hope is going to be an ongoing series. Mind you, you can't help but wonder if Yvette Erskine's going to be able to get back into Tasmania for research purposes if a few of the upper echelon characters in THE BROTHERHOOD are recognisable real people! THE BROTHERHOOD is a debut book which promises quite a ... Read Review |
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Blood Atonement, Dan Waddell25/08/2011 - 1:22pmOkay so I'm a bit of a fan - which after two books is quite an achievement. It's probably a little bit to do with the basic premise of genealogy being used to solve crimes (family tree research being an investigation in its own right after all), but mostly it's because Dan Waddell really can tell a bit of a tale. There is a serial killer theme to BLOOD ATONEMENT, although initially it's only Detective Grant Foster who sees the parallels between the death of Katie Drake, and the disappearance of her 14 year old daughter, and a case 3 years earlier. But do not let that ... Read Review |
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Crimespotting, Introduced by Irvine Welsh23/08/2011 - 3:34pmI think I'll just keep saying this until I run out of breath completely - but really, the world needs more quality collections of Crime Short Stories. CRIMESPOTTING, a fabulous little volume put together as a fund raiser for The ONECITY Trust, is subtitled "An Edinburgh Crime Collection". It features stories by lesser and well known authors including (in alphabetical order) Lin Anderson, Kate Atkinson, Margaret Atwood, Christopher Brookmyre, John Burnside, Isla Dewar, A.L. Kennedy, Denise Mina, Ian Rankin and James Robertson. (There are some stories here which go on to be included ... Read Review |
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Close-Up, Esther Verhoef18/08/2011 - 2:02pmThere's something about the blurb to this book that seems to suggest that it's tending towards a romance. If that's what you're looking for, you might want to consider your options. Whilst we're talking relationship here, we're also talking manipulation, need, dependencies and some really really nasty behaviour. It's not just the possibility of overt romance that could put a reader off - there's Margot herself. At the beginning of the book she's starting out after a relationship that obviously controlled her, set her life's path. She comes across as one of those ... Read Review |
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A Bali Conspiracy Most Foul, Shamini Flint17/08/2011 - 1:10pmThe second Inspector Singh novel from Shamini Flint takes Singh to Bali to join the anti-terrorism efforts post a major bombing that ripped through the tourist areas. What exactly Singh is doing as part of a anti-terrorism squad is no clearer to him than it is to anybody else, but the body in the wreckage, shot dead before the bomb gives Singh the sort of case that he's used to solving - a straight-forward murder. When I read the first book (A MOST PECULIAR MALAYSIAN MURDER) I did comment "This book is definitely on the lighter side of crime fiction, I'll have to read ... Read Review |
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Crosskill, Garry Disher16/08/2011 - 4:37pmCROSSKILL is another of my Wyatt series rereads - just because I want to. This book, in particular, really takes on the bad guys. Wyatt may not immediately seem to have much of a moral conscience when it comes to taking other people's money - but he does think honour amongst thieves is important. Especially where his money is concerned. As with all the Wyatt series, Wyatt plays a lone hand, with just a little help (and hindrance) from his friends. But when trouble arrives it hits him from all sides. Wyatt will, of course triumph in the end. There will be ... Read Review |
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Chelsea Mansions, Barry Maitland11/08/2011 - 1:17pmWith any long term series, it's not surprising to see an author rejigging the relationships just a little, bringing in new perspectives or adjusting the expectations. CHELSEA MANSIONS is the ninth Brock and Kolla book from Barry Maitland, and in the last book there were hints that there is a little viewpoint modification going on. It's always particularly interesting to watch how various authors move their long-term characters in and out of the limelight, particularly when you have an inherent seniority built in, as you have in a police pairing. Maitland seems be carefully ... Read Review |
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De Luxe, Lenny Bartulin02/08/2011 - 1:19pmHands up everyone who has ever thought that owning a secondhand bookshop sounds like their idea of a perfect life. If your hand is in the air you might have a problem. Reading DE LUXE is either going to put you off the idea - or make it seem just that bit too exciting. Personally I still rather like the idea of a bookshop of my own, so I'm hoping that the extra-curricula activities that Jack Susko gets involved in aren't compulsory! DE LUXE is the third instalment in this wonderful set of books, set in Sydney, "starring" Jack Susko, aforementioned bookshop person, cat ... Read Review |
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Dead Man's Chest, Kerry Greenwood12/07/2011 - 2:28pmDespite constantly "bragging" that we live about an hour from just about anywhere... it does mean that every trip in the car do to anything takes a while. We've recently turned to audio books to fill in the hours of dodging kangaroos and potholes and the most recent that we've been listening to is DEAD MAN'S CHEST by Kerry Greenwood. Number 18 (good grief.. really!) of the Phyrne Fisher series, the audio version is read particularly well by Stephanie Daniel who does an excellent job of individual accents for each of the characters - and there is a lot of characters in this book, ... Read Review |
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A Man You Can Bank On, Derek Hansen06/07/2011 - 5:11pmI don't know - maybe it's because the book is set in a small country town struggling to survive (and I live 20 kilometres or so out of just such a town), or maybe it was the line on the opening page "He had the sort of body normally achieved by eating plankton.", but I was particularly disposed to liking A MAN YOU CAN BANK ON. It's not going to come as much of a surprise that this is a bit of a romp style novel. There's the local town bank manager, a disgraced cop sent to the outback to serve his time, the bank manager's daughter, the local animatronics expert, a bloke ... Read Review |
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Whispering Death, Garry Disher30/06/2011 - 3:09pmPut a book with Garry Disher's name on the cover down on the table at our place and there's bound to be a bit of sighing from certain quarters. Fair enough, it normally means that all forms of communication will cease until the book is finished. Whilst I will admit a slight preference for the Wyatt series, the Challis and Destry books are getting better and better with each outing. I particularly like the way that the focus is switching between the two main characters, and their romance is developing but not taking over from what is, after all, an excellent police procedural. I've ... Read Review |
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Falling Glass, Adrian McKinty15/06/2011 - 1:11pmThere are some books that it is just flat out a relief to finish. Too much sleep deprivation and the dust bunnies can start to look like they are moving into formations for the final onslaught. FALLING GLASS really cheats a lot. Having become a somewhat besotted Michael Forsythe fan, I did think I could approach FALLING GLASS with the vague hope of keeping reasonable hours. He plays a bit part only in this book after all, with the action centred around enforcer Killian. Should have known better. McKinty writes that brand of dark, violent, no holds barred, tempered with touches ... Read Review |
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Death of a Red Heroine, Qiu Xiaolong10/06/2011 - 2:50pmTo my mind, the very best crime fiction in the world provides a window into the world in which it is set. Be that the psyche of the people, the machinations of the society, how a community is structured and operates, the laws and mores, even the way in which authorities deal with the disorder, how they implement authority. DEATH OF A RED HEROINE is set in Shanghai in 1990, a year after Tiananmen Square, an ancient city with a population tightly controlled by the Communist Party. Poet Chen Cao is an unlikely policeman, forced into the job by the party system, he's caught between a ... Read Review |
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Paydirt, Garry Disher01/06/2011 - 5:09pmWyatt is back in a new adventure set on the far side of morality. Introduced in Kickback, Garry Disher's fast-selling, widely praised crime novel, Wyatt reappears in the South Australian outback, intent on snatching a payroll. But Wyatt is not the only one eyeing the funds. The Outfit has business with Wyatt. It will only be finished when he faces the hitman's gun. Garry Disher's highly controlled, fast-paced style brilliantly matches this tense, unnerving story of treachery and rough justice.Read Review |
Die A Little, Megan Abbott26/05/2011 - 12:54pmDIE A LITTLE is the first in a series of books from Megan Abbott flagged somewhat unhelpfully as "modern noir". I'm not at all sure what that should imply in terms of expectation, but whatever caused it, something didn't really work about this book for me. Leaving aside the fact that the cover is absolutely wonderful and the title is glorious, the style very atmospheric and the build up interesting (woman with a "past" who marries a cop, cop's sister smells a rat, digs), something about the delivery of this story simply flat out didn't hold my interest. I suspect part ... Read Review |
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Crime, Ferdinand von Schirach25/05/2011 - 2:52pmThe author of CRIME, Ferdinand von Schirach is a criminal lawyer in Berlin. He's also an extremely good storyteller. The stories incorporated in CRIME (as the publicity material puts it) were specifically chosen to demonstrate the relationships between truth and reason, law and compassion. They are real-life cases from the author's own experience. The subject matter, frankly, is frequently much much easier to imagine as fictional - but they are not. Whilst it's clear they are tales chosen to trigger certain emotions and reactions in the reader, in von Schirach's hands ... Read Review |
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An Accidental Terrorist, Steven Lang24/05/2011 - 4:30pmA f2f bookclub read, I started this book with high hopes, having just finished another with what seemed like a similar concept. A scenario that had some serious potential, this book started off okay but quickly just seemed to degenerate into a mish-mash of making the reader feel sorry (attracted to / interested in) a central character that was just... well boring. Unfortunately this feeling of being bored was compounded by some extremely predictable events, actions and outcomes. Perhaps the idea was to show how somebody unwittingly gets involved with things that they shouldn't. ... Read Review |
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1222, Anne Holt17/04/2011 - 5:50pmTake one gloriously grumpy central protagonist, add that train crash, include a massive snowstorm cutting off a train full of people 1222 metres above sea level in an inaccessible hotel, add a mysterious locked carriage and a group of shadowy unknown passengers, then kill off a high-profile passenger and see what happens. What happens is that our grumpy protagonist, Hanne Wilhemlsen, ex-police officer, in a wheelchair as a result of being shot on duty, has to work out what is going on before the body count continues to increase. With no official help from the outside, ... Read Review |
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The Affair of the Bloodstained Egg Cosy, James Anderson15/04/2011 - 2:51pmYes, yes, I know. What am I doing reading a book like THE AFFAIR OF THE BLOODSTAINED EGG COSY. In my defence I used to be quite a SPLASHER (4MA speak for somebody who reads a wide range of crime book "styles") although in recent years I will admit I've moved more and more to the dark side. But every now and then I like a bit of a splash around in the lighter side of the genre, and I do rather like the eccentric side of the classic English country house sub-genre. Chuck in a slightly batty Lord; an unflappable Lady; a house with secret passages; a poor cousin / secretary / jolly ... Read Review |
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Zulu, Caryl Férey12/04/2011 - 12:49pmUnbelievably violent, amazingly confrontational, searingly honest and profoundly emotional, ZULU is one of those books that you may have to read through spread fingers, but it is almost impossible to put this book down until it screeches to an ending that will make you shudder. This is noir, critical, brutal writing at it's absolute best. The "Zulu" of the title refers not so much to the tribe as a whole, but to Cape Town homicide captain Ali Neuman. Heading up the investigation into the death of a young woman whose body is found with a crushed skull, Neuman accepts that ... Read Review |