The Crime Fiction genre is a broad church. Delivery styles, subject matter and purpose can vary wildly from the light-hearted to the darkest noir, from purposely vicious and cruel to accidental and panicked. There's even shades in terms of how or why. Investigation and resolution with all...Read more
The second in the Harry Belltree trilogy, events in ASH ISLAND follow closely on from CRUCIFIXION CREEK. Short-listed for the 2015 Ned Kelly Awards CRUCIFIXION CREEK set up a different character for Maitland to work with in Australian, Indigenous Detective Harry Belltree. There is still,...Read more
In 2013 Aoife Clifford was awarded an Australian Society of Author's mentorship to help bring this debut novel - ALL THESE PERFECT STRANGERS - to fruition. To be fair to those who have read it and are finding the idea that this is a debut novel hard to believe, she has form. Shortlisted for...Read more
Taking a central theme of "is there really such a thing as an innocent person?" and asking a combination of well known and emerging Crime Fiction Writers from Australia to address the question, has culminated in the creation of CRIME SCENES - a short story collection which works on a number...Read more
Something went wrong in the reading universe a while ago and I missed that this had been sitting in the unread list, when I picked up and enjoyed the second in the series - A SONG FOR THE DYING.
Which weirdly turned out...Read more
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
The central premise of RUNNING TOWARDS DANGER is a fascinating idea. What would you do if the flatmate that you knew very little about, and saw even less of, is suddenly gunned down in front of you, and the investigation into his death starts to reveal some very worrying facts about his...Read more
A deftly handled plot, strong characters and a sly, dry humour make this an outstanding debut crime novel. - Review at Newtown Review...Read more
Honkaku is a subgenre of Japanese Crime Fiction that came into being sometime in the early 1920's. The original definition was "a detective story that mainly focuses on the process of a criminal investigation and values the entertainment derived from pure logical reasoning". The term was...Read more
June Wright is one of the early writers who forged a way for the current vibrant Australian crime fiction scene. Reviewed at Newtown Review of BooksRead more
A perfectly formed piece of glorious over the topness featuring Logan McRae, DCI Steel and the recent Scottish independence referendum. Which of course isn't going to bode well. I mean it's part of the world that gave us Whisky. And people who drink whisky. When they are happy, sad, or...Read more
Barry Maitland's Brock & Kolla series is notable for, amongst many things, the way that he always takes a location in London and builds it into the story, almost as another character. In the first of the Harry Belltree trilogy, CRUCIFIXION CREEK, set in Sydney, there is a similar...Read more
Sure Logan McRae's now an Acting Detective Inspector, in uniform. In the backend of nowhere, with a good team working with him, especially when you realise the number of cows they have to chase off roads. His girlfriend has improved a little, she's now in a care home, still uncommunicative...Read more
I've read MERCY (aka THE KEEPER OF LOST CAUSES) by Jussi Adler-Olsen twice now and finally I think I've got it the review straight in my head.
Why twice? The first time I read this book was right in the middle of a series of releases based around the woman locked in the...Read more
Set in the heat, dust and community of the South Australian Mallee there is much that is visceral in ONE BOY MISSING. From the opening in which a young, vulnerable boy desperately tries to avoid a pursuer, to the character of DS Bart Moy who is back in Guilderton, possibly because his...Read more
"Carroll is the Australian writer who has most fully and consistently approached the dark and alienated world of Americans like James Ellory and Andrew Vachss..." Continent of Mystery, Stephen Knight (MUP, 1997).
Sometime in the early 2000's,...Read more
Said it before, should say it again. Will read anything Stuart MacBride publishes... eventually. And yes I know they are extremely violent, dark, with a warped sense of humour and slightly mad edge. What, therefore, is not to love.
A SONG FOR THE DYING isn't, however, a Logan...Read more
Dark, funny, dark, clever, funny, dark and absolutely brilliant, 13 SHOTS OF NOIR is a short story collection blurbed as in the "vein of Roald Dahl". I need to go back and read Dahl. Unless Brazill's got more of these collections.
Short, sharp and lyrical, these are dark dark...Read more
In Zero at the Bone, the second book in this series, Frank Swann has moved more sideways than on. Working as a PI, he finds himself dragged into the suicide of geologist Max Henderson, whose wife Jennifer enlists Swann’s services to find out the reasons for his death – there is no doubt...Read more
Saw this book referred to somewhere as CSI meets Medium in print. Which will mean something to exactly the sort of readers that HINDSIGHT is pitched directly at.
Needless to say that's not me. Whilst my paranormal allergy has been mitigated slightly over the years by some...Read more
On page 2 of this book I kind of got the feeling that we'd be destined to get on very well....
"He's got more prior convictions than brain cells which means he won't get bail, so he's wallowing in the Metropolitan Remand Centre at Ravenhall, trying to find a
...Read more
Look, let's just admit that I'm a huge fan of this series and get it over and done with. Love DI Steel, love her glorious over the topness, love McRae's constant sooking and all being put upon. Love the madness of the world in which they have to try to operate as functioning police members...Read more
MURDER WITH THE LOT is set in the fictional Mallee town of Rusty Bore, featuring Cass Tuplin, fish and chip shop owner, mother, and self-appointed private investigator. The story is told all from Cass's viewpoint, a viewpoint which is somewhat skewed towards a ... how should we put this...Read more
Living on the edge of the Pyrenees (the ones in Victoria, Australia), surrounded as we are by wineries and winemakers, it's was a rather interesting experience to find myself reading TREACHERY IN BORDEAUX which is steeped in wine-making tradition, methodology, and a dash of intrigue....Read more
Here's the thing. You hoard a book because it's a favourite series, and there's no sign of the next one yet. But then there are noises about the next one, but that's not out for ages, but you can't wait any longer so you read the one you've had tucked away. Then you've not got that little...Read more
You'd think, on the face of it, that this would be a book that would be right up my dark and twisty alley but for some reason A DENIABLE DEATH took an age to read, and I came away from it with a mild sense of disappointment.
And try as I might, I can't quite put my finger on...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
After the two last house parties, Lord Burford's misgivings about guests were understandable. After all, the "unfortunate incidents" which had taken place had been murders. But, these people were travelling a long way for the funeral of an elderly relative. There was nowhere else for them...Read more
It's just so heartening to know that the Pufferfish Series lives on that it's difficult to remain objective about the latest book. HOW THE DEAD SEE is the second of the re-emergence of David Owen's much loved, acerbic, dry, funny, dark and quite prickly Detective Inspector Franz Heineken...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