Sorted on book title (not in series order)
There's some disquiet about the place these days over the use of "Girl" in titles of books. We all know where it comes from and the marketing decisions that seem to be feeding it. Suffice to say it's a trend that makes me (an old old woman) a bit squeamish. Especially as neither Julie or...Read more
Mirror twins are identical twins, with some opposing physical features, so when they are facing each other they can appear as mirrored reflections. Birthmarks can be on opposite sides, cowlicks may run clockwise on one twin and counterclockwise on the other, and so on. In some extreme cases...Read more
One of the things that makes Louise Welsh one of my favourite authors is the way you just never know what to expect when a new novel arrives.
In THE GIRL ON THE STAIRS Jane Logan moves to Berlin to be with her partner Petra, in the lead up to the birth of their first child....Read more
Nat now lives a picture perfect life - an artist, an instagram influencer, she has a husband, a baby and staff. She's also back living in the same place she grew up, friends with some of the girls at school who bullied and tormented her when they were younger, seemingly living the perfect...Read more
Crime fiction fans are frequently a talkative lot, and news of a phenomenally good book spreads very very quickly. THE GIRL WITH THE DRAGON TATTOO has been "the" book on quite a lot of people's lips for what is actually a startlingly short time since it was released - particularly released...Read more
Happily, we encounter here more of the same winning ingredients once again in THE GIRL WHO TAKES AN EYE FOR AN EYE. There is the resourceful and charming journalist Blomkvist, the enigmatic and bitingly intelligent hacker Lisbeth Salander, and another action based plot populated with...Read more
Sulari Gentill’s award-winning historical crime series is written with verve and spirit, the fiction woven seamlessly into actual events of the time.
Review of Give the Devil His Due, and the entire Rowland Sinclair series at ...Read more
Sometimes you have to wonder if the blurbs publishers put on the front of the book are more of a hindrance than a help. In the case of Alex Gray's 6th book - they've set an unbelievably high expectation with 'Brings Glasgow to life in the same way Ian Rankin evokes Edinburgh'. Quite a high...Read more
The follow on from FOR REASONS OF THEIR OWN, GLASGOW SMILE is set (the title relates to something specific in the surroundings), in Melbourne, where the discovery of a woman's body stabbed and strangled late at night in the graffitied and dark tangled laneways of the innercity sets off a...Read more
If you're looking for something that's wild, ranty, full to brim with nobody (including the good, bad, and slightly deluded) winning at anything, then GLASS BARBIE could be just the ticket.
It's a roller coaster ride alongside wild man, crackhead, Karl Copley. He of the big...Read more
The second novel from Irish born, Australian resident Chris Flynn, THE GLASS KINGDOM is one of those books that you're either going to get, or be horribly confused by.
Set in the weird and wild world of travelling carnivals, there's nothing whatsoever normal and straight about...Read more
The author of THE GLORIOUS HERESIES, Lisa McInerney, has a bio around the traps that's worded:
"Lisa McInerney is from Galway and is the author of award-winning blog 'Arse End of Ireland'. The Irish Times has called her 'the most talented writer at work in
...Read more
Depressed doesn't do justice to the dripping, sad, obsessed melancholy of the magnificently complex Maurice Laice (More is less just being one of his nicknames). Maurice is just one character that stands out from the page, his boss - she of the totally obsessed with her sex life; Aline...Read more
Technology based thrillers like GOING ZERO can, sometimes, make this reader wary. Very wary, as the "tech" is often so far off course it endangers teeth and the book's ability to stay in one piece. Not so in GOING ZERO - the tech here might be a tad ropey in places, but the application was...Read more
When local Crime and True Crime Author Lindy Cameron decided to re-release GOLDEN RELIC as an ebook I was very very pleased (DISCLAIMER - I did the conversion of the manuscript into the ePUB file). I remember the story of STOLEN PROPERTY (as it was originally titled) when it was released...Read more
Being a bit of a sucker for a strong sense of place, and culture I was intrigued by the Makana series, and lucky enough to get the second book - DOGSTAR RISING for review. But this seemed to me to be a series that should begin at the very beginning, so I shouted myself the first book, THE...Read more
Espionage thrillers these days frequently put "the terrorists" in the old black hat role - the starring role the spies from the Soviet Union and the like used to occupy. The Terrorists in these incarnations can come from anywhere - they could be Russian (mafia or not), they can frequently...Read more
When Candice Fox opened up GONE BY MIDNIGHT with a missing child and a sick goose I wasn't sure if I could go on. I mean a missing child is one thing, but a sick, possibly life-threateningly ill goose felt like one blow too many. (Don't @ me - they are both fictional and I'm very fond of my...Read more
A take on a noir romp with stylised good cop / bad cop characters, humour is a huge part of GOOD COP BAD COP. Therein lies probably the biggest problem - find it funny and it's going to work really well. Find it somewhat forced and the misogyny and objectification comes across as a bit...Read more
After gunshots echo through the summer night on Mount Macedon, Detective Sergeant Zoe Mayer and her loyal service dog Harry race to the summit at first light. What they find looks like a grisly an alleged fraudster named Piers Johnson, and his lawyer Antony Peterson, both dead from bullet...Read more
THE GOOD DOG is the third novel featuring DS Zoe Mayer and her service dog Harry. The background to why Mayer has Harry, and some of the back story about why a new partner is working with her is in both of the previous books, and touched on enough here to give new readers some hints as to...Read more
Set in the UK, GOOD GIRL, BAD GIRL presents us with two female victims of crime; one murdered, another who was subjected to terrible abuse as a child and is soon to be released from the British social welfare system. Robotham fans will be forgiven for thinking same same,...Read more
Set mostly in the Western suburbs of Melbourne, JM Green’s Good Money introduces Stella Hardy. A social worker by vocation, Hardy is the sort of laksa-loving, inner-city woman who fits into the role of accidental detective with considerable aplomb. She moves through the suburbs on...Read more
THE GOOD THIEF'S GUIDE TO AMSTERDAM is exactly the tonic required for a crime fiction fan in dreary, cold winter. Sure it's set in slightly more exotic cold Amsterdam, but the tone of the book is just on the cheeky side, a little bit light-hearted, a touch of the romp. It is a good tale...Read more
Second in the Good Thief Series (after Amsterdam), THE GOOD THIEF'S GUIDE TO PARIS sees the return of Charlie Howard, author and professional thief along with his agent Victoria and fence Pierre. Although in this book Victoria gets to be more than just a voice at the end of the phone....Read more
The second fiction book from New Zealand writer, Gigi Fenster, A GOOD WINTER is a story of a group of women, after Lara moves to the city to be near her widowed, pregnant daughter. Sophie really starts to struggle after Michael is born, her grief compounded by post-natal depression. The...Read more
Small town living in 1990's Australia is big in GOODWOOD, which is interesting as this is a slow burning, confined, seemingly "small" story in the life of 17 year old Jean. She lives in Goodwood, a small town, near a bigger town, with her mother, near her grandparents, surrounded by people...Read more
Sydney Bauer’s first book, UNDERTOW was a fast paced thriller and GOSPEL is promoted in the same way. It doesn’t seem to have quite the same pace and I think it suffers for that. The first couple of chapters introduce a so many characters that I found it confusing for quite a while. ...Read more
It's hard not to become increasingly enamoured of this wonderful series of books (of which there are now 8 translated), based in the gloriously described wine regions of France, featuring the curmudgeonly, slightly arrogant, ever vigilant Benjamin Cooker, his assistant Virgile and wife...Read more
A slow burner novel, THE GRAPEVINE is the tale of a murder from the perspective of its fallout in a small suburban community in Canberra, in 1979.
It's also a breathtakingly clever takedown of much of what remains flat out stupid - xenophobia, racism, homophobia, misogyny, and...Read more