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Black Widow, Christopher Brookmyre23/05/2024 - 9:09pmBLACK WIDOW is the 7th Jack Parlabane story, which I did read before WANT YOU GONE, but the review is going up out of order, just because (well actually I was working my way through a list from the bottom up so that's worked well....) Anyway, this book is the story of surgeon Diana Jager and husband Peter Elphinstone, her outing as the writer of a deeply unpopular blog about life in a sexist, bullying workplace, and his supposed death, six months after they married, when his car left a road and plunged into a river. She's disgraced, widowed, and there are a ... Read Review |
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Want You Gone, Christopher Brookmyre23/05/2024 - 8:59pmWell this is a disappointment. Not the book, but the fact that this another audio journey through a series that's gotten to the end. Jack Parlabane, book number 8, WANT YOU GONE. Here's hoping there are more on the way because I do so love this series (having read them all / now listened to them all). This one is the story of nineteen year old Sam Morpeth. Left to care for her younger sister, who has Down's Syndrome, after their mother was sent to prison, she's an anxious, lonely and worried young woman. Not just because the constant pressure of a sister that doesn't ... Read Review |
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Crossing the Line, Nick McKenzie23/05/2024 - 11:38amI read Chris Master's book bookwyrm.social/book/1432873/s/flawed-hero (Flawed Hero on the same defamation trial (as per the Federal Court's listing www.fedcourt.gov.au/services/access-to-files-and-transcripts/online-files/ben-roberts-smith): Ben Roberts-Smith v Fairfax Media Publications Pty Ltd (NSD1485/2018) Ben Roberts-Smith v The Age Company Pty Ltd (NSD1486/2018) Ben Roberts-Smith v The ... Read Review |
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The Last Devil to Die, Richard Osman22/05/2024 - 2:32pmThe biggest problem I'm finding with the audio versions of the Thursday Murder Club entrants, THE LAST DEVIL TO DIE being the latest, is that the blasted things fly past in the blink of an eye. Even at silly number of chapters they just simply disappear, leaving me wanting more too quickly. Although THE LAST DEVIL TO DIE pulled some deeply moving surprises on more than one occasion - the depiction of somebody (Elizabeth's husband Stephen) disappearing as Alzheimer's took over was heartbreaking. And helpfully educational, as we're inclined to not see Alzheimer's from the ... Read Review |
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The Dublin Trilogy (books 3 - 7), Caimh McDonnell22/05/2024 - 12:59pmThe Dublin Trilogy by Caimh McDonnell is now made up of 9 entries, two of which are novellas. Bear with me: In Order of Publication:
A Man with One of Those Faces
Angels in the Moonlight |
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The Quarry, Kim Hunt21/05/2024 - 12:29pmTHE QUARRY is now the second novel in a series featuring NSW ranger Cal Nyx. If you're new to these, it's a series that's going to be well worth following. There's no immediate requirement to read the earlier book first (THE BEAUTIFUL DEAD), although it will give you a slightly fuller picture of this fascinating central character. Of course there are some elements here that are kind of expected these days. Nyx is a tricky character, from a difficult background, who has found her place, working in the Australian landscape as it gives her a sense of peace and belonging. As ... Read Review |
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Bone Lands, Pip Fioretti08/05/2024 - 5:35pmIn 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 |
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Devil's Breath, Jill Johnson07/05/2024 - 4:30pmDevil’s Breath is the first novel in a new crime series built around a neurodivergent professor of botanical toxicology, Eustacia Rose. Full Review at Newtown Review of Books |
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Dragon's Back, A.C. Edwards03/05/2024 - 5:28pmSet 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 |
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Bleed for Me, Michael Robotham01/05/2024 - 4:47pmFans of Australian writer Michael Robotham will always be waiting with baited breath for the next instalment from him. Be it a book that features (now) ex-cop Victor Ruiz, psychologist Joe O'Loughlin, Sikh detective Alisha Barba or a combination of those characters. BLEED FOR ME is another Joe O'Loughlin book, with a hefty appearance from Ruiz as well - and these two are particular favourites of this reader anyway. If you've never read a Robotham book before it won't take you long to get up to speed with Joe's back story. A psychologist, he doesn't practice any more, now ... Read Review |
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The Water's Dead, Catherine Lea30/04/2024 - 4:22pmTHE 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 |
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One Of Us Is Missing, B.M. Carroll30/04/2024 - 2:25pmIn BM Carroll’s latest crime novel, one family’s celebration turns to disaster as a teenager disappears amid a crowd of concert-goers. Full Review at Newtown Review of BooksRead Review |
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It Takes a Town ... to solve a Murder, Aoife Clifford18/04/2024 - 11:42amIn 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 |
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Sanctuary, Garry Disher11/04/2024 - 11:24amA new crime novel by Garry Disher is always exciting. In Sanctuary, he introduces a new protagonist: a female lone wolf. Full Review at Newtown Review of BooksRead Review |
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The Mystery Writer, Sulari Gentill26/03/2024 - 12:22pmIn 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 |
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The Beacon, P.A. Thomas22/03/2024 - 8:45pmA disgraced son of a powerful Australian media tycoon, the traumatised daughter of a small town newspaper editor, coincidentally owned by the aforementioned tycoon. One is sent to "learn the ropes of journalism" / ie been kicked down the line, the other is in town after something sent her legal career into free fall. Then the local newspaper editor dies in a seeming shark attack and things get messy. Byron Bay does have a reputation for being a laid back, holiday destination, pumped full of influencer types, and some serious money. So when Jack Harris is sent there to ... Read Review |
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The Day That Never Comes, Caimh McDonnell21/03/2024 - 1:28pmThe 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:
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Darkness Runs Deep, Claire McNeel21/03/2024 - 1:21pmGrowing up in any rural community in the 1970's meant a LOT of talk about football. The boys that played were always the hero's, the girls that watched never mentioned, except if they were connected to the tuck shop at the ground in some way. Or cleaning the change rooms, and the toilets, and running around driving football players here and there. (Well to be fair they still weren't much mentioned no matter how much of the actual work they did). Needless to say I have a deep, abiding, all consuming loathing of all things "aussie football", and the relentless cascade of bullshit that ... Read Review |
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Deep in the Forest, Erina Reddan20/03/2024 - 2:16pmAs 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 |
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Home Before Night, J.P. Pomare18/03/2024 - 2:14pmIf you were a resident of Melbourne (or any larger city I suppose), the announcement of one of the many COVID lockdowns was a sudden jolt to the nervous system. What JP Pomare has done, in HOME BEFORE NIGHT, is add an extra layer of complexity when Lou realises her son Samuel isn't going to make it home by the cut off time of 8pm, supposedly staying with his girlfriend instead. She's not handling that particularly well, having not been at all convinced by the girlfriend on initial meeting. But that turns to major concern when Samuel doesn't seem to be contactable - he's ... Read Review |