Sorted on book title (not in series order)
The 5th novel in the Sam Shepherd series set in Dunedin, New Zealand, EXPECTANT is the latest work from Vanda Symon, the author Val McDermid refers to as "New Zealand's modern Queen of Crime" (fiction one hastens to add).
Sam Shepherd is an experienced, tough, up for anything...Read more
Taking up from DEADFOLK (a debut with a punch if there ever was one), FAGS AND LAGER finds out just how far Royston Blake, head doorman at Hoppers and self-confessed hard man of Mangel, will go for free stack of tinnies and fags.
It seems it's a fair way, as long as you don't...Read more
THE FALL BETWEEN is the debut novel from Darcy Tindale, set in the Muswellbrook area, located in the NSW Upper Hunter Valley. The story features Detective Rebecca Giles, who, after some time in the police force, has returned to her home town in no small part because her father, an ex-cop...Read more
FALLEN ANGEL was released in 2019. I hate how behind I'm getting with my all time favourite authors, Chris(topher) Brookmyre being very unfairly on that accidental list. His take on people being people, particularly when some of them are flat out horrible people, is always drily delivered,...Read more
THE FALLING DETECTIVE is the second Leo Junker book written by Swedish author Christoffer Carlsson. Not having read the first was a minor irritation (with myself) in reading this because Junker is complicated, challenging, slightly off-beat and utterly charismatic. In an odd, shadowy,...Read more
There are some books that it is just flat out a relief to finish. Too much sleep deprivation and the dust bunnies can start to look like they are moving into formations for the final onslaught. FALLING GLASS really cheats a lot. Having become a somewhat besotted Michael Forsythe fan, I...Read more
If you've not heard of FALLING by T.J. Newman then you aren't part of Book Reading Social Media circles, because there has been one hell of a marketing campaign for this book. And it's working. It's getting rave reviews, film rights have been sold, everyone, but everyone, is reading it,...Read more
The Fallout is one of the Wyatt Series of Disher's novels. Wyatt is a career criminal involved in everything from art theft, bank robberies, fraud and whatever is going really.
The Fallout is Wyatt's sixth job, taking off where Port Vila Blues finished. On a boat with...Read more
When a man like Ihaka hears there are questions about the death of his father of course it will be front of mind. Just as the unsolved murder of a young girl on election night 1987 preys on the mind of his boss Finbar McGrail. It goes without saying that Ihaka is going to start kicking over...Read more
Emotion, reaction, damage and recovery are at the core of B Michael Radburn’s dark thrillers.
In 2011 The Crossing arrived in the Australian crime fiction landscape, combining aspects of the supernatural with the story of Taylor Bridges as he dealt...Read more
Adeline yearns for family, but for many years, since the death of her parents when she was a teenager, the closest she's gotten is her assistance dog, Coco. Adeline can also see ghosts. She has seen them all her life, off to the side as she goes about her days, never interacting, but always...Read more
THE FAMILY NEXT DOOR reinforces the notion that despite being constantly surrounded by people, you can often feel alone. Deep suburbia provides such a huge source of material and is finally in drama fiction being recognized for that richness. There is a lot going on in this book, and it’s...Read more
On her last day at FBI headquarters at Quantico before transferring to the Los Angeles field office, Australian FBI profiler Sophie Anderson is given the task of showing crime author Loretta Black around the facilities. She finds Black to be rude and overbearing, and is glad when the tour...Read more
FAN MAIL is P. D. Martin’s third in the Sophie Anderson series and her strongest to date. Martin follows Sophie and Detective Sorrell as they conduct the investigation. So many detective novels are linear; we start at point A, go to point B and end at point C. Not so FAN MAIL. It twists...Read more
Readers were introduced to Joel Fitch and his mentor Richard Mordecai in the first book of this series, CHASING THE ACE. This second book, FAST AND LOOSE, starts up where the first left off, with Fitch and Mordecai parted ways, and Fitch left holding the cash. Rather a lot of cash straight...Read more
Martin's the sort of bloke that persons of a certain age can identify with. It might not make you all that comfortable with yourself, but boy can you identify (I hasten to add I have NEVER worn brown suede shoes and if I ever do .... well feel free to shoot me on sight), but I digress....Read more
A remote island. A brutal murder. A secret hidden in the past . . .
In the middle of the North Sea, between the UK and Denmark, lies the beautiful and rugged island nation of Doggerland.
Detective Inspector Karen Eiken Hornby has returned to the main island, Heimö...Read more
Having had the urge to try BorrowBox from our Library system recently, I happened upon the first three books in the Doggerland series by Maria Adolfsson - FATAL ISLES (2018), WILD SHORES (2019) and CRUEL TIDES (2020). It looks like there are three more books that haven't yet been translated...Read more
Book three in the journeys of Dennis Bogdanovich, a sanitary engineer and keen fisherman, the earlier books are SWIMMING WITH BIG FISH and SWIMMING WITH CROCODILES. It's one of those trilogies that having started out with this, the third book, I'd have to recommend against that - spent a...Read more
Imagine a very different Edinburgh, one where constant earthquakes, tremors and aftershocks are a regular part of life. This is the setting for Fault Lines which opens with Surtsey setting foot on Inch, a small island in the Firth of Forth which was formed after a volcanic eruption 25 years...Read more
It's probably heresy to admit this - but there were a few things about this book that made it sound less attractive than it could have. Not least of all the plot of a teenage girl going missing in circumstances sounding suspiciously like a run-away. Teenage angst is a subject normally...Read more
There are simply not enough of these short novella books being published these days. Not only do they give you a real taste of (frequently) lesser known writers, they are perfect little handbag books - stocking stuffers if you want. FEDORA WALKS could definitely stuff the stocking of a...Read more
This is one of those books that the blurb will give you a very good feel for the style (and there is a lot of style here) of story-telling deployed. THE FELL I can best describe as a stream of conscious coming of age novel that's light on punctuation, and big on the angst, challenge and...Read more
Mr Wong is a breath of fresh air to the mystery genre. He is a feng shui master who just happens to solve mysteries while giving his clients interior decorating advice as a geomancer; its all about noticing negative chi energy accompanied by simple observations. All Mr Wong wants to do is...Read more
The second novel in the RJ Rox series, THE FESTIVAL KILLER is a crime novel, with a rejected manuscript at its heart. The connection between the past unsolved case of an ambassador's secret love child going missing at the Berlin Book Festival, and subsequent disappearances from similar book...Read more
Relationships (personal, business, familial, friendship) are complicated things, as the 6th Tony Hill and Carol Jordan book FEVER IN THE BONE explores.
The central investigation centres around the brutal deaths of a number of apparently unconnected teenage victims. Starting...Read more
A FEW RIGHT THINKING MEN introduces Rowland Sinclair to fans of Australian historical crime fiction. Set in 1930's Sydney and Yass, A FEW RIGHT THINKING MEN takes a reader into a world where the affects of the Great Depression are being felt, and the tension between the Proto-Fascists and...Read more
John Cardinal is a detective in the small police force, in Algonquin Bay, Ontario a small rural town in Canada. The local mayor keeps reporting his wife missing, when everybody else in town knows exactly what she's up to. Rather than just try to convince the poor delusional husband what's...Read more
Adrian McKinty has an awful lot to answer for. Sitting down to read FIFTY GRAND, I thought this would be another good book from an author whose books I've increasing come to like. What I didn't expect was a nearly straight reading sitting, leaving the entire household making do with...Read more
Remarked upon often as the first Arabic detective story translated, THE FINAL BET is a very slim volume that has a strong central message. The book really isn't particularly about Casablanca the place, or even the people. It's very much targeted straight at the way that the Moroccan legal...Read more