DEATH 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...Read more
I don't know - maybe it's because the book is set in a small country town struggling to survive (and I live 20 kilometres or so out of just such a town), or maybe it was the line on the opening page "He had the sort of body normally achieved by eating plankton.", but I was particularly...Read more
Not sure what's weirder, talking to fictional characters, or the feeling that you actually know those fictional characters... Either way, you have to think it's quite a feat for a writer to get you to the stage where you're more than happy to regard her characters as real people. MILES OFF...Read more
I am a bit of a sucker for a daft title, even though it frequently explodes in my face. Even then, it did come as somewhat of a surprise to be reading a knitting type book (no patterns ... there are limits). The reason I picked up MAD MEN, BAD GIRLS AND THE GUERRILLA KNITTERS INSTITUTE is...Read more
When THE OLD SCHOOL was released all the way back in 2010, I noted "As I was reading this book I couldn't help but create a checklist of the things that make up seriously good crime fiction for me, and apply it as I went." Every box ticked needless to say, which means that the follow up has...Read more
When they say "write what you know" Anne Buist seems to have taken that advice very much to heart, especially when it comes to the clinical and working experience of her central character - Dr Natalie King. Hard to say about the Ducati, history of mental health problems and clothes sense...Read more
Before WA based author Felicity Young commenced her extremely good Dr Dody McCleland series, she published a series of police procedural novels one of which built around the central character of Sergeant Cam Fraser in it. FLASHPOINT, originally out in 2005, has recently been re-released in...Read more
Built around the worlds of art fraud, forensic accounting, law and the European Mafia DEATH OF A FRIEND is the debut novel of Australian author Desmond L Kelly.
There's an interesting concept at the centre of this book - two men, friends since their schooldays, different...Read more
GUNSHINE STATE has been compared to Garry Disher's Wyatt series for a very good reason. The anti-hero characterisation here is as crisp and clear as you'd want, with Gary Chance the sort of loner survivor that has stepped straight from the pages of classic noir into the bright lights and...Read more
DEAD AGAIN is the second novel in the Georgie Harvey and John Franklin series. Harvey is a Melbourne based journalist and Franklin a Daylesford based cop, and whilst it's not absolutely necessary that you've read the first book - TELL ME WHY, it would help a lot to understand why there is a...Read more
A new Pufferfish novel will always be a thing of joy - whiteboard lists or no whiteboard lists and BIG RED ROCK fits the bill perfectly. Of course you will need to have a love of self-deprecating wit that's so dry you'd swear it originated in Uluru rather than Hobart. You will need to like...Read more
The second in the Cass Diamond series MISSING PIECES is set in far North Queensland, with Cass Diamond investigating connected cold case disappearances. In 1992, toddler Yasmin Munoz went missing from a picnic spot near Cairns. In 2012 local businessman and former mayor Andrew Todd dies,...Read more
Fans of Australian writing (not just crime fiction) if you've not caught up yet with Rowly Sinclair and his wanderings through 1930's Sydney and beyond, where on earth have you been?
A DECLINE IN PROPHETS is the second book in the Rowland Sinclair series from Sulari Gentill and...Read more
Katherine Kovacic's Alex Clayton series (all two books of them so far...) could be used as a teaching tool for aspiring Australian crime novelists on achieving balance between personal backstory and plot, and how to craft a realistic strong female lead character, because they are both...Read more
Bush crime, or rural noir if you prefer, is having quite the moment as we all know. The challenges of such extreme geographic isolation in the hostile environment of outback Australia lends itself well to works of crime and dramatic fiction. It’s possible there is going to be no one...Read more
Second novels are tricky beasts loaded with expectations, particularly when they come on the heels of recent stellar debuts. Australian author Christian White has written another confidently executed work of family drama and generational intrigue that will take up a just a few hours of...Read more
SHORE LEAVE is the fourth novel in the Frank Swann series. Frank's an ex-cop, now private investigator in 1970's / 80's Perth and Fremantle. In this outing it's 1989 and the Yanks are in town, and with the arrival of a huge US nuclear-powered aircraft carrier, there are lots of sailors on...Read more
Number 3 in the George Smiley series, probably the best known of the lot, just before listening to the audio of this we watched the Richard Burton / Claire Bloom movie version again after discovering it on one of the streaming service subscriptions in one of those late night, can't be...Read more
Into the crime fiction reader's life something different should lob more often. CRIMINALS is not only different, it's brilliantly different.
Well known ABC presenter James O'Loghlin has taken his inspiration for this novel from his time as a criminal lawyer, and told the tale...Read more
Having been a fan of the Halifax TV Series, starring Rebecca Gibney as Dr Jane Halifax, this book was greeted with considerable excitement. The author, Roger Simpson, is an award-winning screen writer, creating both the telemovie series of Halifax f.p. (which ran from 1994 to 2001) and its...Read more
Kirsty Jagger’s debut novel is a confronting story about growing up in the worst of circumstances, and how violence and poverty can happen to anyone. Full Review at Newtown Review...Read more
The author of THE CONCIERGE, Abby Corson, has been a luxury travel and lifestyle writer for over 10 years, and it shows in the way that she's able to depict a luxury hotel in the English countryside, with it's own concierge, Henry Harrow, the narrator of this, her first novel.
...Read more
When I read the first novel from Alexander Thorpe (DEATH LEAVES THE STATION) I hadn't quite twigged to the extent that future novels would be based around the itinerant friar figure - but it's now titled the "Itinerant Mendicant" series, and it really makes a lot of sense. He's a...Read more
An historical mystery that mixes fact and fiction, THE WOMAN WHO KNEW TOO LITTLE is set in Adelaide in late 1948. It's a story about female police officers built around the factual case of the Somerton Man, a notorious tale that has captured much speculation for many years until recently...Read more
Ten years ago six teenagers hiked into the wilderness and five of them came back alive. They were school friends. Ed (whose family farm was their starting off point), Hugh, Charlotte, Laura, Jack and Alex, close, but with the sorts of slightly complicated romantic attachments and fractures that you find in groups of kids of that age. Nobody for a moment thought that this would be a dangerous hike, they were experienced walkers, fit, and Ed knew this area from a childhood growing up here. Only Ed died, and for the ten years since his mother Mary has had plenty of time to think about her beloved only child's death.Read more
Australia's loss is America's gain.
The Victorian Police sent Sophie Anderson on the FBI's International Program, a six week course at Quantico to refine her profiling skills. When the FBI discovered she had dual citizenship she was offered a profiling job with the FBI unit at...Read more
BLOOD SUNSET is the second book from Jarad Henry, HEAD SHOT having already introduced us to Detective Rubens McCauley, his work partner Cassie, his ex-wife Ella and Prince the cat. Don't for one moment get the wrong idea though - the presence of the majestic Prince in these books doesn't...Read more
You'd be hard put to think of another mystery series, with a female protagonist that is set in the Australian outback so on this alone, perhaps author Brownyn Parry has chosen her setting and thus her market very well. We have somewhat of an old fashioned girl leading the action in this...Read more
Despite constantly "bragging" that we live about an hour from just about anywhere... it does mean that every trip in the car do to anything takes a while. We've recently turned to audio books to fill in the hours of dodging kangaroos and potholes and the most recent that we've been...Read more
DEATH AND THE SPANISH LADY is the first book from Carolyn Morwood for quite a while, and that, if for no other reason was enough to create some interest in these parts. Set in the period immediately following World War 1, in Melbourne, during the Spanish 'Flu epidemic of 1919, the book...Read more