Resurrection Bay, Emma Viskic
A deftly handled plot, strong characters and a sly, dry humour make this an outstanding debut crime novel. - Review at Newtown Review...Read more
Comfort Zone, Lindsay Tanner
COMFORT ZONE is the debut novel from Ex Federal Minister for Finance and long-time Labor true believer Lindsay Tanner. Given his background it's not surprising that he's turned his hand to crime writing with an emphasis on societal ills.
In COMFORT ZONE his area of special...Read more
The Big Score, Peter Corris
There are probably more, but immediate reactions on getting a book of short stories, is that there are precious few Crime Fiction short story collections by Australian authors around (I'm probably about to be proven totally wrong!). But there's something very engaging about a good...Read more
Dead in the Water, Tania Chandler
Do a quick search on any of the book reading community websites and you're going to find a large number of novels called "Dead in The Water", adding to the feeling that there's something nicely tongue in cheek about the title of Tania Chandler's second novel also being the title of a crime...Read more
Bay of Martyrs, Tony Black & Matt Neal
Whenever you're confronted by a jointly authored novel it's very hard to dampen the temptation to constantly look for hints on who contributed what components. Which was the case for around the first 20 pages of BAY OF MARTYRS and then I totally forgot to look.
Set in the South...Read more
Get Poor Slow, David Free
There were so many reasons I wanted to love GET POOR SLOW. The concept of the most hated book reviewer in Australia being the only suspect in a murder, right down to the belly full of bourbon and the curdled dreams of literary greatness sounds like great fun. And I did so like the opening...Read more
The Chinese Jar
A man is found poisoned at the foot of Cleopatra's Needle on London's Embankment, apparently having taken his own life. His identity is a mystery that Octavius Rixton (alias Octavius Fanks, detective) is determined to solve. A mysterious cryptogram leads Fanks to believe that oriental...Read more
The Dark Lake, Sarah Bailey
A debut novel set in a small Australian town, The Dark Lake is a police procedural with a hefty dose of romantic tension. Reviewed at ...Read more
Devil's Lair. Sarah Barrie
Callie Jones has never had any reason to mistrust her husband Dale, until the day that derails her entire life. How could Callie have been so wrong about the man she had chosen to spend the rest of her life with?
Fleeing from the eyes of the press after Dale’s violent death,...Read more
Bruny, Heather Rose
A comment often made about BRUNY is that readers going in did not know it was going to be such a political read. BRUNY is one of those works that very effectively puts the frighteners on for many fronts; climate change, politics, foreign investment, cultural divides – swing the proverbial...Read more
The Shifting Landscape, Katherine Kovacic
The third book in the Alex Clayton Art Mystery series sees a shift of setting to the Western District of Victoria and one of those big pastoral leases that were such a part of the landscape down there. The title of the novel "The Shifting Landscape" is quite cleverly pitched referring as it...Read more
Furey's War, TW Lawless & Kay Bell
Jack Furey is 100 years old, in a nursing home, and not a happy man. In the introduction to FUREY'S WAR it quickly becomes apparent that Jack is his own man, not somebody to be trifled with, and definitely not somebody to underestimate, even after a devastating stroke. Inside his head, Jack...Read more
The Way It is Now, Garry Disher
THE WAY IT IS NOW is another new character from Garry Disher, mining some familiar territory for him, in that we've got a cop who is struggling with his past, present and future. Even for a youngish man, Charlie Deravin has been a cop for years, and there's a lot of backstory to his life....Read more
The Invisible, Peter Papathanasiou
The second George Manolis novel sees him flying from Australia to Greece on an extended holiday after a turbulent time. Recently divorced, mourning the death of his much loved father, Manolis returns to the place of his father's birth - the Prespes region which straddles the borders of...Read more
Murder in Williamstown, Kerry Greenwood
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
Problem Solved: True Stories from a Blind Private Eye, Andrew Chambers
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
Sanctuary, Garry Disher
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
Chasing the Dragon, Mark Wightman
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
The Chilling, Riley James
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
Humidity, Dan Kaufman
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
Dead Set, Kel Robertson
DEAD SET is the first novel for barman, labourer, industrial advocate, policy advisor and now author Kel Robertson and it's a very promising debut.
Brad (Bradman, but don't mention that in front of his colleagues) Chen is an ex-football star, Australian Federal Police Detective...Read more
The Big Score, Peter Corris
There are probably more, but immediate reactions on getting a book of short stories, is that there are precious few Crime Fiction short story collections by Australian authors around (I'm probably about to be proven totally wrong!). But there's something very engaging about a good...Read more
Beautiful Death, Fiona McIntosh
Now a little housekeeping before we go too far. Beautiful Death is the second DCI Jack Hawksworth book, published under the author's real name of Fiona McIntosh. The first, Bye Bye Baby, was published under the pseudonym Lauren Crow. Fiona is a well known Fantasy writer in Australia, and...Read more
No Weather for a Burial, David Owen
Four Pufferfish novels were never ever going to be enough for dedicated fans of this wonderful, quirky Police Procedural from Tasmanian based author David Owen. There was always a real sense of disappointment that Owen didn't appear to have been given the opportunity to publish more of...Read more
ABC Dead, Ethan Youngblood
This book has been sitting on the pile in the corner that came from somewhere I've completely forgotten about - and it's been on that pile for quite a few years now. So I thought I should pick it up and "get on with it".
Probably shouldn't have bothered. Definitely not my style...Read more
All My Enemies, Barry Maitland
Allen & Unwin have re-released Barry Maitland's ALL MY ENEMIES, the third book in the Brock and Kolla series. Given that the book was originally published in around 1996 there were a few things intriguing me. Obviously, whether or not it would stand the test of time, but also, what...Read more
Dusty Dexter PI: Her First Case, Jan Richards
I think I read somewhere that DUSTY DEXTER PI - HER FIRST CASE started life as a newspaper serial, which if that is the case, makes it the second of this sort of book I've read coming out of Queensland this year. Although this isn't a series of short stories, it's the story of an entire...Read more
Blood is Thicker, J.S. McGrath
I fell across this book a few years ago in a shop, having never heard of the author anywhere before. But if it's Australian then I'm almost duty bound to read a book (well that's my justification anyway). This is a story about a serial killer - and the police unit that is investigating -...Read more
Medea's Curse, Anne Buist
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
The Heat, Garry Disher
The 8th in the Wyatt series, the resurgence of the best unrepentant, unapologetic and very demanding professional crook in Australian Crime Fiction is something to be very pleased about.
Wyatt is not a man who plays well with others, and his danger radar is on high alert after...Read more