All the Reviews

The Final Bet, Abdelilah Hamdouchi

Remarked upon often as the first Arabic detective story translated, THE FINAL BET is a very slim volume that has a strong central message.  The book really isn't particularly about Casablanca the place, or even the people.  It's very much targeted straight at the way that the Moroccan legal system functioned at the time that it was written - and you can pick that thread up very clearly even without reading the afterword by the translator of the book - Jonathan Smolin.

Othman has often thought about killing his elderly wife.  The marriage is complicated by the difference ... Read Review

Befriend and Betray, Alex Caine (review by Sunnie Gill)

BEFRIEND AND BETRAY is an insider’s story of this complex and murky world where you can trust no one. Not only did Caine have to be wary of the gang he was infiltrating, but he also had to be circumspect about who he trusted in law enforcement.  His is a story of creating alternative identities and living on his wits, often for months at a time. It makes compelling reading.

Just how such people live, how they maintain their own identity and the effects on their relationships outside their work is as fascinating as the details of the work itself.  In some instances Caine’s ... Read Review

The Black Path, Åsa Larsson

THE BLACK PATH is the sort of book that you need to read with your preconceptions and expectations firmly locked in a drawer.  Having not read the second book in the series yet, I know something happened to Rebecka in that book, but the details aren't important to understanding, from the start of THE BLACK PATH, that she has been through a traumatic experience and she's struggling back into normal life.

But one thing you will find with THE BLACK PATH is that Rebecka, or Anna-Maria or any of the other characters that either reoccur from earlier books, or step forward into ... Read Review

Death Among the Vines, Richard Young

It's refreshing to see more Australian Crime fiction moving out from the suburban and city streets - into the regional areas.  DEATH AMONG THE VINES sets most of its action in and around the Ashcombe Vineyard in the Hunter Valley of New South Wales.  

Col Ashcombe - a well known winemaker - is bashed to death in a creekbed on the winery, just as his son - Tim - is seeking finance to give the New York based advertising agency he is a partner in, a boost to take on some higher profile and larger accounts.  Tim has only recently been in Australia - a flying visit during ... Read Review

The Calling, Inger Ash Wolfe

THE CALLING is one of those books.  One of those books that I found sometimes utterly compelling; was bored witless in some passages; laughed out loud in others; found myself heartily confused about some of the procedural elements; and was slightly repelled by some parts.

It is a serial killer book, and I will admit that I'm getting to the point where I'm over the whole serial killer thing.  I'm particularly over the barking mad, out there motive serial killer thing.  And there's certainly a barking mad impetus behind the killer in THE CALLING.  Luckily, the plot is a ... Read Review

The Scent of the Night, Andrea Camilleri

A large part of the attraction of these novels is the wonderfully grumpy, slightly eccentric, marvellously self-involved Inspector Montalbano.  And the food - the meals that Montalbano insists on partaking on a regular basis are frankly, almost obscenely fantastic.  Of course, for the books to be completely satisfactory there has actually got to be a story, and as with all these books, the story here is superbly Italian in its feel.  The financier Emanuele Gargano has disappeared - as has a large amount of money that a lot of local retirees invested with him.  An investigation had ... Read Review

Flawed, Jo Bannister

FLAWED is the seventh in the Brodie Farrell, Daniel Hood and Jack Deacon books, although the blurb doesn't mention Daniel. As I've never read any of this series before, I was a little confused at the start as Daniel (who at that stage was a total unknown as far as I was concerned) takes centre stage in FLAWED, Jack Deacon is bit of a background character, and Brodie Farrell doesn't really get much focus until way later in the book. To add to the slight feeling of discombobulation, there was then a pretty steep learning curve to get to know who these three are and how they all fit ... Read Review

A Florentine Death, Michele Giuttari

Michele Giuttari is a real-life Italian policeman, head of the Squadra Mobile for around 8 years in his own right, so it's not too much of a stretch to believe that his central protagonist, Michele Ferrara, is more than a little autobiographical.  The author has allowed his character to be slightly quirky, but undoubtedly he is the hero of the piece, and given the cases that Giutarri investigated, including the Monster of Florence, the reader has to assume that some of the events aren't that far from real life as well.  

As the bodies are found, seemingly pointlessly ... Read Review

Into the Darklands and Beyond, Nigel Latta

Nigel Latta did a session at the Crime & Justice Festival earlier this year, that to be brutally honest, we all ended up attending more by good luck than our own good judgement (the session we'd booked was cancelled) so we switched.  I can't remember the last time I felt so lucky to switch to a session about subject matter that so isn't something you want to think about.  Not only does Nigel Latta make you think - he makes you laugh - he makes you squirm uncomfortably - he makes you just a bit weepy at points.  Mostly he makes you glad that there are people like him doing the ... Read Review