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All The Dead Voices, Declan Hughes12/01/2010 - 3:44pmGrant me a moment here, but Ed Loy is well and truly back and I'm more than a little bit happy about that! ALL THE DEAD VOICES is a really tense, investigative novel with a just a touch of the thriller about it. The action is swift, the tension carefully ramped up and the plot nicely complicated. The details are carefully laid out, allowing the reader to keep up, sort it out, decide for themselves, pick up the clues along the way. Provided you're concentrating. In 1980 two IRA men are hiding beside a roadway, ready to detonate the bomb destined to kill a hated judge ... Read Review |
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Cold Justice, Katherine Howell (review by sunniefromoz)12/01/2010 - 3:04pm“Write what you know” aspiring writers are often told. Katherine Howell has done that to good effect. She worked as a paramedic for many years and her detailed knowledge of both the job and the physical and emotional toll it takes are vividly portrayed. COLD JUSTICE is Katherine’s third book (the previous two are Frantic and The Darkest Hour) and her writing seems to get better and better . COLD JUSTICE not only has the fast pace of a thriller, it also has multiple threads which are gradually pulled together. Katherine is also a dab hand at knowing exactly when to change threads in ... Read Review |
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Dark Mirror, Barry Maitland (review by Sunnie Gill)10/01/2010 - 11:54amDARK MIRROR is a first rate police procedural. The author plays fair with the reader. The clues are all there, it's up to you to sort out which are red herrings and which are genuine. He also strikes a nice balanace between the private lives of the characters and their work. A good police procedural is one of my favourite types of books. If it's done properly it keeps you reading compulsively to find out if your theory is correct. I did manage to figure it out in the end, but not before I ran trough a number of suspects and changed my mind several times. If ... Read Review |
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Innocent Blood, Elizabeth Corley06/01/2010 - 12:49pmThere are some authors who just seem to be able to consistently turn out good books, ones that engage your attention, sometimes create some discomfort in the reader, but invariably make you think. Elizabeth Corley is one of those authors for me, I remember her books long after I've finished reading them. INNOCENT BLOOD continues the standard. DCI Fenwick's case - the Choir Boy investigations into a paedophile ring, was triggered by information from the USA, indicating that there is a paedophile ring operating in his area. This ring looks like it has been in existence ... Read Review |
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A Question of Power, Michelle Schwarz05/01/2010 - 1:11pmIn 2001, when a series of newspaper reports revealed that four women had accused Geoff Clark of rape I distinctly remember trying to follow the complicated legal and reporting machinations that were going on. I also distinctly remember feeling like I'd failed in that endeavour badly, but was never exactly sure why. Reading A QUESTION OF POWER gives you a distinct understanding of why this case was so complicated, so intense, so emotional. This book really is a fantastic example of investigative journalism, and ultimately, of the very best sort of true crime ... Read Review |
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Torn Apart, Peter Corris05/01/2010 - 1:06pmIt couldn't ever be said that the loss of his Private Investigator's licence has slowed Cliff Hardy down. In TORN APART, the death of his look-alike cousin in Cliff's house, an arrest for importing illegal drugs, a trip to Ireland, a gathering of Irish Traveller descendants, a brush with the spooks and a new woman don't even slow him down. But they do coincide to give him a moment or two's thought. Meeting Patrick - a second cousin he never knew about, a second cousin who is the absolute spitting image of him certainly does give Cliff something to think about. Not the ... Read Review |
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Dark Country, Bronwyn Parry02/01/2010 - 1:21pm
You'd be hard put to think of another mystery series, with a female protagonist that is set in the Australian outback so on this alone, perhaps author Brownyn Parry has chosen her setting and thus her market very well. We have somewhat of an old fashioned girl leading the action in this novel, and it A huge and not to be undersold appeal of Parry's novels is the picture they paint of small town Australia. Dungirri could be any one of hundreds ... Read Review |
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Ice Cold, Andrea Maria Schenkel (review by Sunnie Gill)08/11/2009 - 1:03pmSomehow the format that worked so well in "The Murder Farm" doesn't seem to have quite the same impact in ICE COLD. Whether it's because of the story of that the novelty of the unusual format isn't as fresh, I'm not sure. Perhaps it was the blurb on the book jacket which asked the question, "but is he really guilty?" It is a question that maybe leads to false expections about the ending. I found myself none the wiser at the end of the book than I did when I first opened it. It could be more the fault of the publicists and powers that be who decide what goes on the blurbs ... Read Review |
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Dead-End Road, Richard Kunzmann22/10/2009 - 2:15pmDEAD-END ROAD is third novel Detective Harry Mason novel from South African author Richard Kunzmann - the earlier books are BLOODY HARVESTS and SALAMANDER COTTON. It was the first of this series that I've read, and I'm not sure that was necessarily a wise move. It's been a couple of years since Harry's last outing and since then he has joined the elite Serious and Violent Crimes unit. They have been assigned to the investigation of the slaying of a minor politician and his family in a township west of Johannesburg. Unsolvable, until a tip sends the unit in pursuit of a ... Read Review |
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Born or Bred?, Robert Wainwright & Paola Totaro (review by Sunnie Gill)11/10/2009 - 12:38pmBORN OR BRED? began life as a book to tell Bryant's mother's story. However, unhappy at what the authors wanted to do, Carleen Bryant quickly pulled out of the project. By that time Wainwright and Totaro had become fascinated into trying to find if there was something in Bryant's past that would explain in inexplicable. They spoke to neighbours, friends, family, teachers; anyone who knew Bryant and his family willing to talk, trying to shed light on the man. All are interesting; some are revelatory. Probably the people who come closest to giving us an ... Read Review |
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Fifty Grand, Adrian McKinty23/09/2009 - 11:59amAdrian McKinty has an awful lot to answer for. Sitting down to read FIFTY GRAND, I thought this would be another good book from an author whose books I've increasing come to like. What I didn't expect was a nearly straight reading sitting, leaving the entire household making do with scratch meals, and the dogs threatening to pack their bags and leave home if meals and playtime didn't get back to normal pretty darn quick. FIFTY GRAND features a new character from McKinty, Cuban cop Mercado. There are some vague similarities to earlier books in plot location though - set ... Read Review |
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Death and the Running Patterer, Robin Adair17/09/2009 - 1:55pmDEATH AND THE RUNNING PATTERER is the book that won Penguin's last Most Wanted Crime Writing competition, and there's a comment in the acknowledgements that explain a little about the development of the book: "I owe a debt to Robert Sessions, Penguin Australia's Publishing Director, who overcame his initial shock at being confronted with a manuscript knocked out on an old manual typewriter...." The reason for highlighting this is that whilst reading DEATH AND THE RUNNING PATTERER was a very enjoyable overall experience, the book is made up of a series of ... Read Review |
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Bruno Chief of Police, Martin Walker19/08/2009 - 12:04pmIf you're not a fan of cosy style mysteries, you could be forgiven for missing BRUNO CHIEF OF POLICE. Don't be fooled by the cover photos, or the blurb which uses a comparison with a rather well known cosy writer though. BRUNO CHIEF OF POLICE is much more of a police procedural. Well it's a rural French procedural, so whilst there's a violent murder to be solved, there's also a very engaging central police character, a great sense of place, and meals to die for. Perhaps a comparison with Montalbano might have been more successful? Although it's still not quite accurate as Bruno ... Read Review |
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Burial, Neil Cross18/08/2009 - 1:10pmNeil Cross really knows how to put together a story. More importantly, in BURIAL, his second crime fiction novel, he's absolutely not afraid to write a very morally ambiguous central character. When Nathan meets up with journalist Bob again at a drug fuelled party at his bosses house, he did something incredibly stupid. He was young and restless but just maybe he wasn't the one that killed a young girl that night. Maybe she wasn't actually killed but just died in very wrong circumstances. He certainly had a part in covering up her death. Somehow that isn't the ... Read Review |
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Deep Night, Caroline Petit11/08/2009 - 12:28pmDEEP NIGHT is the second Leah Kolbe book from USA-born, Australian resident author Caroline Petit. Set in 1940's Hong Kong, Leah finally agrees to marry her lover English ex-pat Jonathon. Unfortunately the date of their wedding - Christmas 1941 - finds her exiled to Macau and Jonathon in a Japanese prisoner of war camp. The Japanese push from occupied China into Hong Kong is rapid and brutal. Those that can escape to Macau live a hand to mouth existence as refugees. The rest of the story you can get from the synopsis of the book really. DEEP NIGHT was just one of ... Read Review |
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Kickback, Garry Disher10/08/2009 - 5:02pmThere's a new Wyatt on the way, and that means it's as good a time as any to do a little tidying up of the back catalogue. Wyatt is a very careful man, because he has to be. Wyatt robs banks, lifts payrolls, gets girls, leaves girls, lives the life of a loner, trusts few, works out the details and thinks a job through. He regards his criminal activities as his job, he's very professional. He doesn't like surprises, he doesn't like hot heads and half wits, mind you, he can handle them when he needs to. Kickback is the first Wyatt novel from renowned ... Read Review |
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Closer Still, Jo Bannister04/08/2009 - 1:07pmJo Bannister has an impressive back catalogue to her name with over 20 novels now, standalones and in a number of series groupings. CLOSER STILL is the 8th Brodie Farrell book, released in 2008 with LIARS ALL the next in the series, released in 2009. It's probably worth getting this out in the open up front. I'm not a fan of Brodie Farrell, and that's not just because she's one of those "gifted" amateurs who seem to climb over the backs of the cops. In particular, her "partner" Jack Deacon who seems to do most of the graft and take most of the professional hits, whilst ... Read Review |
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Dead I Well May Be, Adrian McKinty31/07/2009 - 1:58pmDark and funny, tough and confrontational, lyrical and even poetic in places, quintessentially Irish, DEAD I WELL MAY BE is the first in a series of books featuring Michael Forsythe, a young Irish man with a flair for danger, drinking, and fighting his way out of impossible situations. McKinty writes in a style that's easy to associate with noir Irish writing, a sort of a stream of consciousness thing, that alternates between incredibly compelling and making the reader want to hide under the bed blankets. Michael is a young Irish man, older and wiser than his age would ... Read Review |
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Fan Mail, PD Martin (review by sunniefromoz)21/07/2009 - 1:14pmFAN MAIL is P. D. Martin’s third in the Sophie Anderson series and her strongest to date. Martin follows Sophie and Detective Sorrell as they conduct the investigation. So many detective novels are linear; we start at point A, go to point B and end at point C. Not so FAN MAIL. It twists and turns; sometimes at breakneck speed, other times almost stalls as they hit dead ends. There is backtracking to re-question witnesses and suspects and frequent revisiting of evidence in light of new information. Martin has also managed to pull off something that I don't think too ... Read Review |
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Once Were Cops, Ken Bruen14/07/2009 - 3:19pmWhere Do I Begin? Ken Bruen writes in his own form of poetry. The words pull no punches. His characters make no apologies. They will do as they damn well please and sometimes there are simply not enough good guys to go around. You think. It's hard to tell who is a good guy and who isn't. ONCE WERE COPS isn't going to be a novel for everyone. It's hard, bad, dark, violent, unapologetic, difficult and complex. There are no winners and there are lots of losers. ... Read Review |