All the Reviews

Bone Lands, Pip Fioretti

In 1911, Augustus (Gus) Hawkins is a mounted trooper in rural New South Wales. A veteran of the Boer war he's a complex man with a severe case of PTSD and a bad dose of long-standing longing for Flora Kirkbride, eldest of four children of a local "landed gentry" family. Until the night he discovers the bodies of her three younger siblings, brother and two sisters, shot dead on a road that he should have been patrolling. It's the night of the Coronation Dances, a time when the locals gathered in large groups. Which makes their murders doubly surprising, surely somebody's absence would ... Read Review

Dragon's Back, A.C. Edwards

Set in Hong Kong, DRAGON'S BACK is the first novel in the series introducing PI Galahad Jones. The series currently includes the second novel, DRAGON'S CLAW, and third, DRAGON'S EYE. Galahad Jones is a personally conflicted sort of a man, his business is struggling, he's got a gambling debt that would choke a horse, a big problem with people who want their money or else, and a nice line in female sidekicks, from his unimpressed office administrator to his apprentice Joey Loh - a woman who takes "sidekick" to a whole new level.

It's worth mentioning at this point that the ... Read Review

The Water's Dead, Catherine Lea

THE WATER'S DEAD is the first novel featuring DI Nyree Bradshaw (BETTER LEFT DEAD is out in September), set in the upper north island region of New Zealand, with idyllic scenery, pockets of poverty, a strong, tight knit Māori community, and a lot of fractious relationships.

None more so than the relationships of Huia Coburn, a young woman whose body is found dumped in a rock pool at the bottom of a waterfall by a couple of tourists with a messy story of their own. The complications of Huia's murder are compounded when it's realised that she was looking after a young, ... Read Review

It Takes a Town ... to solve a Murder, Aoife Clifford

In Aoife Clifford’s third novel, the death of a local celebrity brings two old schoolmates together to answer some troubling questions.  Full Review at: Newtown Review of BooksRead Review

The Mystery Writer, Sulari Gentill

In Sulari Gentill’s new novel, aspiring writer Theo and her brother Gus become embroiled in increasingly bizarre conspiracy theories.   Full Review at Newtown Review of BooksRead Review

The Day That Never Comes, Caimh McDonnell

The second book in the Dublin Trilogy (which is probably the 2nd published, but the 6th in the "trilogy", so between this and Adrian McKinty's trilogy which isn't, Ireland obviously does trilogies differently). Anyway, THE DAY THAT NEVER COMES, is also the name of a song by Metallica (or so I'm told), for whatever that's worth, but in the context of this book it's a line from a firey session in front of a crowd of really pissed off citizens of Dublin:

"When is the day when those who brought this country to its knees will be made to stand and face the

... Read Review

Deep in the Forest, Erina Reddan

As is the way of the world, there have been quite a few crime fiction books recently that delve into the world of cults, the people that get caught in them, and those trying to get them out. DEEP IN THE FOREST is a slightly different twist on that. It's the story of a small town outcast, who via some coincidental work connections, and the fact that she lives very near the community known as the Sanctuary, finds herself pulled too far into their world.

Charli Trenthan is an outsider in her hometown of Stone Lake, thanks mostly to the local police sergeant who really holds ... Read Review

Dirt Town, Hayley Scrivenor

An outstanding debut novel back in 2022 (good grief has it really taken this long to post this ...), it's very very hard to look past an Australian rural noir novel called DIRT TOWN. Sitting as I am at the moment in the middle of an Australian rural summer that's mostly putting up dust clouds and fire smoke everywhere you look.

Set in the sweltering (can identify) small Australian town of Durton, this place is referred to mostly as Dirt Town by the locals (and why wouldn't they). There's a particularly apt quote:

Dirt town. Dirt and

... Read Review

I Am Behind You, John Ajvide Lindqvist

The thing with any novel by John Ajvide Lindqvist is to remember the stages of reading.

Stage One is always, oh wow, why do I take so long to pick up these books. This is just amazing. 

On the whole his work is amazing. It's horror sure, and that's something I'd normally go out of my way to avoid, but it's his version of horror, which always has something extra. It's not just about the shock, it's about the why's and where's of human behaviour, and the how did we get here's. Or at least that's what all his novels I've read have felt like to me. 

... Read Review