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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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Hell's Fire, Chris Simms08/08/2009 - 2:30pmHELL'S FIRE is the fourth book in this Manchester based series featuring DI Jon Spicer, although this is the first book in the group that I've read. An error of omission on my part that I'm going to have to do something about! As you'd expect with a story that concentrates on the torching of churches, there are a lot of religious elements to this book. Although organised religion and the satanic ritualism as part of the church destruction is only part of a complex intertwining of religious elements. Satanic ritualism at the scenes connects to a Satanic styled rock ... 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 |
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Death Wore White, Jim Kelly14/07/2009 - 3:06pmThere's nothing better than a well-executed version of one of the good old staples of crime fiction - a twist on the locked room scenario. DEATH WORE WHITE is the first in a new series from CWA Dagger Winner Jim Kelly, an author well known for his ongoing Philip Dryden books. DI Peter Shaw and DS George Valentine are a good pairing - Valentine the older cop, ex-partner of Shaw's father, his career has seen higher points. Shaw, on the other hand, is a rising star, keen to prove himself and to clear his father's, and consequently Valentine's, reputations over the last ... Read Review |
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Deadly Desire, Keri Arthur08/07/2009 - 1:09pmAustralian author Keri Arthur is a dab hand at striking that balance between action and seduction and has won herself a whole swag of romance and fantasy readers for it. Her creation Riley Jensen is just enough of the girl we all know and also just enough of the girl we'd like to be or know, set in an alternate urban landscape that literally seethes danger and the promise of deadly deeds. Riley and her fantastical compadres stalk the night and struggle to keep the monsters, which are really not so different from themselves, away from unsuspecting Melbourne urbanites. ... Read Review |
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Dining with Devils, Gordon Aalborg19/06/2009 - 1:32pmAfter spending a fair amount of time in Tasmania in the 1970's, Canadian Gordon Aalborg did what all red blooded Canadian-Australian men do, he turned to writing romance novels. 20 or more of those novels later, he's now turned to crime fiction as well, and DINING WITH DEVILS is the second of those. Set in Tasmania, DINING WITH DEVILS combines crime and caving - not a combination that you'd immediately think of (unless you're inclined towards the belief that activities in the dark are best when that dark is rocky, hard, damp, and far underground!) Sergeant ... Read Review |
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Bleeding Heart Square, Andrew Taylor11/06/2009 - 1:29pmStorytelling or Storyweaving? BLEEDING HEART SQUARE is a classic example of a carefully woven psychological suspense story written by one of the English masters. Mind you, this isn't going to be a book for everyone. It's one of those stories that starts out with central threads that slowly are interwoven towards the conclusion. Something has happened in connection to 7 Bleeding Heart Square. In 1934, Lydia Langstone seeks refuge there from her violent husband. It's a decaying London cul-de-sac, in a time that is feeling the threat of war. It's a seedy part of the ... Read Review |
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A Deadly Trade, Michael Stanley09/06/2009 - 3:31pmThere's something in the water (or maybe it's in the dust) in Africa at the moment. Whilst there has been a slowly increasing number of crime or mystery books set in Africa, there's now an increasing number written by African authors appearing for our enjoyment. Michael Stanley (the South African duo of long-time friends Michael Sears and Stanley Trollip), have now released their second book - A DEADLY TRADE (aka The Second Death of Goodluck Tinubu), follow up to the very well received debut book - A CARRION DEATH. Wrapped up in the well devised plot of a solid police ... Read Review |
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Dark Mirror, Barry Maitland09/06/2009 - 11:55amFans of Barry Maitland's Brock & Kolla series have had a wait on their hands. The last book - Spider Trap - was released in 2006, with a standalone book Bright Air in 2007. Leaving aside the eagerness with which we fans wait for the next book in a favourite series, there's also the slight nagging doubt always - has the wait been worth it? In DARK MIRROR Kathy's been promoted and Brock seems to being forced away from front-line policing, more into administration. They are called into the investigation of the death of a beautiful young woman who dies horribly in the ... Read Review |
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Curse of the Pogo Stick, Colin Cotterill02/06/2009 - 4:54pmAnybody who hasn't indulged in the Dr Siri series by Colin Cotterill could be forgiven for wondering what on earth is going on with CURSE OF THE POGO STICK. Booby-trapped corpses and reluctant coroners might be reasonably expected in crime fiction, but Hmong villagers needing exorcism by a thousand-year-old shaman who shares the aforementioned coroner's body? Understandably a "What the" moment. Whilst the spiritual (supernatural) component of CURSE OF THE POGO STICK is considerably stronger than the earlier books, the series has been building the unlikely scenario of ... Read Review |
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A Decent Ransom, Ivana Hruba21/05/2009 - 1:03pmA DECENT RANSOM is a story of a kidnapping gone right (according to the tag on the book). More than that it's a story about a bit of a misfit that somehow ends up okay, despite all the odds being stacked against him. The storyline is pretty simple to start off with - two young (as is revealed) half-brothers, each a misfit in his own right, coming from a totally dysfunctional background, live in the dire circumstances that their mother deserted them in. The elder comes up with a classic get-rich quick scheme, the younger brother Phoebus is the one who deals with the ... Read Review |