Queensland, 1976, the town of Royalton and exiled Detective Ray Windsor, sent to the dying town in the state's west, feels like an alien in his own country. Royalton is ruled by corruption, populated by despair and an overwhelming sense of hopelessness, something that Windsor instantly has...Read more
WAKE won the CWA Debut Dagger in 2019, and it's not at all hard to see why. Atmospheric and cleverly constructed, with a strong sense of place and realistic characters, WAKE has a plot that bring past trauma, grief, guilt and violence forward in a family, and community, to the consequences...Read more
Bryan Brown is an actor synonymous in these parts with that sort of dry, pared back, quintessentially Aussie bloke character, much like the ones he's played in THE CHANT OF JIMMIE BLACKSMITH and for those of die-hard local crime fiction fans, the much missed Cliff Hardy in THE EMPTY BEACH....Read more
The thing about a book by Garry Disher is that I know it's going to be good. But every single time I find myself marvelling at just how good.
Disher is a master at the art of the space - be it in the narrative, the place or the thing. He evokes a sense of place better than any...Read more
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
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
I used to keep count of "girl in a hat" (and man standing on a foggy street corner) book covers. But in this case, you know the sort of thing, book covers for rural / romance styled novels with girls looking off into the distance, over fields of golden (dry) grass, akubra style hat firmly...Read more
Mark Tedeschi AM QC was, until 2019, the Senior Crown Prosecutor, and the head of Chambers of the Crown Prosecutors for New South Wales. He's now a private barrister, but in 35 years with Crown Prosecution he has prosecuted many high-profile trials in Australia, some of which have involved...Read more
The Wikipedia definition of metafiction is:
"Metafiction is a form of fiction which emphasises its own constructedness in a way that continually reminds the audience to be aware they are reading or viewing a fictional work. Metafiction is self-conscious about
...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
The fourth book in the Cass Tuplin mystery series, set in the dryland farming areas of Victoria, somewhere sort of north west of Bendigo (I think), in the fictional town of Rusty Bore, with a takeaway that always makes me think of Wycheproof. (There's nothing whatsoever in these books that...Read more
The first novel in what one hopes will be a very long series, MASALA AND MURDER introduces Melbourne-based, Anglo-Indian ex-cop / private detective Samson Ryder to the world.
The author, Patrick Lyons, is Anglo-Indian himself, and his view of life obviously informs the way that...Read more
Everyone is going to be talking about EVERYONE IN MY FAMILY HAS KILLED SOMEONE, because it's fiendishly clever, dryly funny (well as funny as a crime novel with a very high body count is going to get), complicated without being overly so, different, and well, relatable, in a weird sort of...Read more
Immersive, almost meditative listening, I started John le Carre's A PERFECT SPY in Audio version recently, and was amazed by it. Partly a spy thriller, but really it's a character study in two parts. Magnus Pym, a young boy growing up with a con-artist for a father, who has become a...Read more
Given the juxtaposition of this review, and my recent one for THE STONING, I probably should mention that Aoife Clifford was the author I was discussing rural noir versus rural crime with. To my eye, Clifford is one of the great writers of rural crime in Australia at the moment, and she's...Read more
In a conversation with a well known author of Australian Rural/Regional crime fiction on twitter recently, we talked about the differences between "rural noir" and "rural crime". She clarified the difference between rural crime fiction and rural noir fiction for me perfectly - a projection...Read more
Australia’s leading writer of rural crime fiction, Garry Disher, has been quietly crafting an excellent series set in the dry wheatbelt of South Australia. Full review at ...Read more
It's been way. too. long. since the last Emily Tempest novel from Adrian Hyland was published. Been way too long since anything from Adrian Hyland was published, so I will admit to some serious stack reshuffling when CANTICLE CREEK arrived. Not a shred of disappointment about the decision...Read more
The first in the Mantra-6 series (Nitrate has been released now), the author of BRIMSTONE, Russel Hutchings, is a former SAS Warrant Officer with over 20 years' service in the Regiment. That experience shows very clearly in the authority of the action sequences, and the way that operational...Read more
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 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 fourth book in the Georgie Harvey and John Franklin series, this series is set, in the main, around Daylesford and the goldfields area, with BLACK CLOUD mostly in Korweinguboora, one of my all time favourite place names (and locales). When I was a kid my grandfather loved heading out to...Read more
CROCODILE TEARS takes Philip 'Cato' Kwong a long way away from his origins in the Stock Squad in the middle of nowhere. Instead, in this final novel in the series, we start out with Kwong investigating the death of a retiree found hacked to pieces in suburban Perth, ending up in Timor-Leste...Read more
I have no idea how this happens, but here I was, reading FROMAGE by Sally Scott, and I suddenly realised... shoes again. Another heroine on the "slightly ditzy side" that's obsessed with shoes. It's so not my comfort zone, although I was looking for something on the lighter, silly side, and...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
A new collection of 17 short stories, 4 of which are previously unpublished, THE LADY WITH THE GUN ASKS THE QUESTIONS would be the perfect introduction point for anyone new to the Phryne Fisher series, or for those of us looking for a bit of diversion in unusual times.
It's...Read more
If, like this reader, you're a bit twitchy about "legal" crime fiction, then PRIVATE PROSECUTION could be just the book for you. As the blurb puts it:
"This is a pacy, darkly comic whodunnit with a twist - Andrew knows who did it but the clock is ticking and he
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Small towns, big secrets, inter-generational trauma, unquestioned deaths, fractured families, kids moving away and never returning, all the sorts of things that sound so very familiar to many of us who grew up in rural Australia from more recent history, back, unfortunately, for generations...Read more
A while ago another much admired true crime writer mentioned the name Frederick Deeming to me, and kindly sent me a short synopsis about the man's background, and the theory that he could be the notorious Jack the Ripper. Prior to that time I confess to never having heard of him, or the...Read more
First off, let me break all the "rules" of reviewing and say from the outset that I really enjoyed CUTTERS END.
Set in the South Australian outback town of Cutters End, this is a two timeline mystery, with the story harking back to the death of Michael Denby in the scrub off...Read more