All the Reviews

Madigan Mine, Kirstyn McDermott

Okay, it's not often that a book will keep himself awake but Adam really liked this - so I think I may have to sneak it into my to be read pile now as well.

But his review is on his blog for those interested.Read Review

Crosstown Traffic, edited by Stuart Coupe, Julie Ogden & Robert Hood

Love a quest and tracking down copies of these short story collections seems to have become one of my major quests.  A lot of these go back to the days of Mean Streets Magazine, and there have always been a few that elluded me.  Very happy dancing when I finally spied a copy in Kill City during a recent trip to Melbourne.

As per the blurb this is a cross genre set of stories, many of which take the reader off in most unexpected directions.  Crime morphing into Western, Science Fiction, Fairy Tales and Fantasy shouldn't really be all that surprising if you think about it ... Read Review

Love Songs from a Shallow Grave, Colin Cotterill

Dr Siri Paiboun has got to be one of the all time great fictional characters.  Irascible, kind, determined, a bit of a push-over, loving, stern, gentle, pushy, pig-headed, he's just so magnificently real.  I know I say this a lot, but if you've never read any of Colin Cotterill's fantastic series based in Laos, built around the elderly and reluctant, one and only coroner in Laos, then get thee to a bookshop / library with all haste.

In the 7th book - LOVE SONGS FROM A SHALLOW GRAVE - Dr Siri and his ever-present companions of Nurse Dtui, Mr Geung and his new wife Madame ... Read Review

Cut & Run, Alix Bosco

We used to wonder what was in the water in Scotland and Ireland, there was such good crime fiction coming out of those locations.  It's rapidly getting to the stage where we have to add New Zealand to the list.  Now I think I've already warned people to stand by for some enthusiastic reviews - well this is one of them!

CUT & RUN is the first Anna Markunas book from Alix Bosco (pseudonym), luckily there's already a second book out and let's hope there's a lot more to come.

Bosco has pulled off a very stylish balancing acts in CUT & RUN with a blend of ... Read Review

Fever of the Bone, Val McDermid

Relationships (personal, business, familial, friendship) are complicated things, as the 6th Tony Hill and Carol Jordan book FEVER IN THE BONE explores.

The central investigation centres around the brutal deaths of a number of apparently unconnected teenage victims.  Starting out with a look at the victims themselves, and therefore into their family relationships, McDermid simultaneously weaves in a closer look at the families of her main characters.  Tony's hitherto unknown father, and his non-relationship with his mother; the strange little "family" that is Hill and ... Read Review

Cops - True Stories From Australian Police, Vikki Petraitis

Commenting on books written by people you know is always a little bit tricky, but one of the things that I always admire about these sorts of books from Petraitis is the way that she can tell somebody's story clearly, compassionately, often with a great sense of humour, but never imposing herself on the telling.  This is a book which is very much about the people whose stories are being told.  And there are some interesting little snippets not covered in other True Crime books - the perilous retrieval of a woman's body from a sunken submarine; the capture of a brutal child rapist; the ... Read Review

Bad Intentions, Karin Fossum

Karin Fossum is an author who uses observation acutely, whilst being more than willing to play with both expectations and the outer reaches of readers' comfort zones.  Each of her books uses a different type of scenario to explore human behaviour and quirks.  In BAD INTENTIONS she is looking at the nature of manipulation, conscience, and absolute and total egocentricity.  She's also very very good at creepy - be it the characters or the setting, and in BAD INTENTIONS there's some of each.

BAD INTENTIONS is the ninth novel overall, seventh available in English, from ... Read Review

Criminal Tendencies, Lynne Patrick (editor)

In his foreword to this fantastic collection Mark Billingham points out so many of the mysteries behind the decline of the short story.  In these days of short periods of available quiet time for reading, it does seem strange that fewer and fewer short story collections seem to be published.  Without or without a theme, I really like this sort of book - that mixes in well-known and lesser known authors.  For a start you can play games with yourself and see if you can pick the writer from the style - rather than checking out their name.  You also get a very direct comparison base from ... Read Review

Dark Matter, Juli Zeh

DARK MATTER is one of those books that I picked up with considerable happy anticipation, so was more than a little startled to find myself really struggling to get into the start of it.  Until a point at which I found I wasn't struggling and was completely absorbed.

And I suspect that's very much what the book is set out to do.  Set in Freiburg near the Black Forest, the book starts out with two men and their obsessions.  Their friendship begins at University, studying physics - Sebastian, retains his love of physics opting for academia, sharing his love of physics with ... Read Review