With any long term series, it's not surprising to see an author rejigging the relationships just a little, bringing in new perspectives or adjusting the expectations. CHELSEA MANSIONS is the ninth Brock and Kolla book from Barry Maitland, and in the last book there were hints that there is...Read more
Following on from the excellent THE DIGGER'S REST HOTEL, BLACKWATTLE CREEK sees Charlie Berlin and now wife Rebecca, 10 years on. Married with two kids, they are struggling to make ends meet on a policeman's...Read more
It’s not really surprising that Stuart Littlemore, well-known legal counsel, would attempt Australia’s answer to Rumpole of the Bailey in a series based on cases where the Defence (in the guise of Harry Curry) rides to victory on the back of some cunning goings-on in the trial courts of NSW...Read more
"The Honest Conman" (aka Nicholas J Johnson) used to do a warning segment on scams and frauds on ABC Local Radio, but it was a pleasant surprise to find he'd written a heist / scam novel. Needless to say his debut novel, CHASING THE ACE, reads like the author knows a lot about the subject...Read more
Slightly girly, crazy comic crime fiction is not my normal cup of tea, and add a plethora of recipes and this reader should, by rights, be groaning and moaning and whinging. But not with The Culinary Crime / Café La Femme series of which DROWNED VANILLA is the second book. (As opposed to...Read more
There is so much to like about the Café La Femme series (of which THE BLACKMAIL BLEND is #1.5), that a novella drizzled into the middle of existing novels, A TRIFLE DEAD and DROWNED VANILLA is a lovely treat - dare one suggest the icing on the cake? It seems that there is a third book in...Read more
You have just got to love a book that has an opening scene that takes you deep into the Vietnam jungle, right into the conflict and deep into the complicated politics of the war.
Or at least that's what it could have been like.
Some things are just never what they seem...Read more
Wouldn't be too quick to classify this one as a psychological thriller as there is very little simmering tension in watching the lead character disintegrate a little day by day. The whole tone of the book is rather desultory, which fits in well with the remote country town setting where...Read more
When Eliza Carmody returns to the small seaside town she grew up in, some things have changed, and a lot hasn't. Often the way when you return to the small town of your youth. Carmody's changed a bit though, and this daughter of the local cop, now lawyer, is there as the legal...Read more
• TRILOGY - Three of British-Australian author Fergus Hume's mysteries are in this Kindle book: The Crowned Skull & The Silent House & The Mystery of a Hansom Cab
The Crowned Skull
A classic murder mystery involving the occult. Sir Hannibal Trevick, a...Read more
GUNSHOT ROAD is the second Emily Tempest novel from Australian author Adrian Hyland. Set in the outback of Australia, GUNSHOT ROAD has one of those magnificently authentic Australian voices that you just know comes from an author who knows his place, and his characters very very well....Read more
Rural noir is a thing at the moment, which means some stellar entries in the category, and some not so good ones. Makes opening each new novel and settling in for the experience a bit of rollercoaster ride. So did 55 live up to the hype? Well yes, yes it did....Read more
Rural noir being the big thing at the moment, it's sad that many seem to have forgotten that there have been superbly talented authors like Garry Disher telling beautifully crafted, intelligent, and informed stories of the urban fringe, and the rural regions for many years. PEACE is the...Read more
Every now and then a book sneaks into my reading pile that absolutely and utterly defies this reader's ability to describe it, the affect it had, and the experience of reading it. A NEW NAME FOR THE COLOUR BLUE was simply amazing. Beautiful, moving, haunting, fragile and deceptive: actually...Read more
BRUNY is a book which unfortunately (stupidly) sat in the reading piles here for, it turns out, way too long. Luckily our F2F bookclub was scheduled to read it last month, and I've never been so pleased that something was jolted out of stasis and into the current pile. It was, quite simply...Read more
THE KILL BILL is the second book in the Referendum Series by ex-politician Richard Evans, and boy can you pick that this author knows all about the back-room machinations that go on in the political world.
In this case we're talking about those around changes to the...Read more
The second in the Reggie da Costa Mystery series from local author Laraine Stephens, DEADLY INTENT is set in Melbourne, in October 1923.
In this outing, heavy rains have battered Melbourne, and local crime reporter Reggie da Costa finds himself at the centre of a story when he...Read more
In the previous book in the long and much loved Phryne Fisher series, DEATH IN DAYLESFORD, author Kerry Greenwood felt it was time for the younger members of the Fisher household to do some investigating of their own. Not surprisingly Ruth, Jane and young Tinker turned out to quite the dab...Read more
Fans of crime fiction, raised on a diet of lone wolf PI's, limping the dark and rainy backstreets in pursuit of justice for the downtrodden, or retribution for wrongs that nobody else cares about, might find the tales in PROBLEM SOLVED a bit of a surprise. Most of the cases that PI Andrew...Read more
A new crime novel by Garry Disher is always exciting. In Sanctuary, he introduces a new protagonist: a female lone wolf. Full Review at...Read more
The second DI Maximo Betancourt novel, set in 1940's Singapore, CHASING THE DRAGON continues his story in close follow on from the earlier novel - WAKING THE TIGER. This novel could work as a standalone, but as with anything where the focus is on a main character, it's probably best to read...Read more
This was one of those fortuitous picks from the library (I know I should be attending to the visible from space TBR here, but something about this book appealed when I heard a whisper about it, and sometimes giving into a little bit of temptation is... good for morale). Anyway, I saw this...Read more
The opening line of HUMIDITY made me laugh:
Word gets 'round when you're a nude model in a small country town.
That would most definitely get around our nearby small country town, even though it could never be said that we have the...Read more
Angela Savage won the Victorian Premiers Literary Award for Best Unpublished Manuscript by Emerging Author in 2004 for this book, then called Thai Died.
Jayne Keeney is an expat Australian woman who, in order to avoid a predictable life, left Australia and started teaching...Read more
A 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...Read more
CROSSKILL is another of my Wyatt series rereads - just because I want to.
This book, in particular, really takes on the bad guys. Wyatt may not immediately seem to have much of a moral conscience when it comes to taking other people's money - but he does think honour amongst...Read more
The reader of my reviews will know I've become a bit of a fan of the Rowland Sinclair series (which is quite surprising for somebody who normally prefers to lurk deep on the dark side), so PAVING THE NEW ROAD was a welcome arrival. Basing the story in 1933, sending Sinclair and his...Read more
Tabitha Darling is the daughter of a recently demised, much missed police superintendent and his wife, a recently moved to Queensland, much missed cook for the local police station. She's trying to run her own dessert destination café in the centre of Hobart, but no matter how hard she...Read more
The second Lexie Rogers book from ex-cop Karen M Davis, it's interesting to note that we've now got a couple of female ex-cops from similar areas writing police procedural style books, although to this reader's eye, completely different sensibilities.
Given that this is the...Read more
Sometimes the world is very kind to a dedicated fan of Australian Crime fiction, particularly when two new books from authors that we've not heard from for a very long time arrive. Peter Doyle and Dave Warner each played their part, many years ago, in engaging an interest in our own stories...Read more