Nothing like Japanese crime fiction to remind you to expect the unexpected, although to be fair, I wasn't too sure what to expect when I plucked this book from the want to read lists. I also, freely confess, I have no memory of it going onto that list so something must have tweaked interest...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
“When we opened Sherlock Tomes people warned us that we’d made a terrible mistake. People warned us that e-readers were taking over. People warned us that we’d never compete with the evil Amazon. The one thing they didn’t warn us about was the murders…”
Introducing......Read more
The third book in the Hawthorne & Horowitz series (it's meta - you can find out more about all of that at reviews of THE WORD IS MURDER and THE SENTENCE IS DEATH), sees...Read more
HOME TRUTHS is the second novel I've been lucky enough to read by author Charity Norman that uses characters and connections to drive home an important, and devastating message. In REMEMBER ME she explored the complications of family,...Read more
DYING LIGHT is the follow-up book to the much talked about and acclaimed COLD GRANITE and it maintains the high standard that the first book in the series reached.
It is summer in Aberdeen, the sun is shining and it is not raining anywhere near as much as it does in winter....Read more
DS Gillespie suspects they are not dealing with the sharpest pencils in the box when she's called to the discovery of two partially disfigured, roughly hidden bodies in the forest. The reputation of the killers is not enhanced greatly when they leave the receipts for all the gear they...Read more
CLEAN CUT is the third book in the Anna Travis series, based in London and La Plante knows how to write real female characters, and she's not afraid to make them likable and profoundly irritating all at the same time.
In CLEAN CUT, the spark that started between Anna and her...Read more
A GREATER EVIL is the eight book in the series feature Trish Maguire - barrister and a bit of a champion of the underdog. In this book she takes on the challenge of proving one-time client (as a badly abused child) Sam Foundling didn't kill his pregnant wife Cecilia. Co-incidentally, Sam...Read more
Sophie Anderson is an Australian profiler working in the USA for the Behavioural Science unit with the FBI. She is also psychic, she sees through the eyes of the killer, and sometimes the victim, in her dreams. She is currently based in Washington DC and soon makes friends with fellow...Read more
Where Do I Begin?
Ken Bruen writes in his own form of poetry.
The words pull no punches.
His characters make no apologies.
They will do as they damn well please and sometimes there are simply not enough good guys to go around....Read more
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
This is a fantastic collection of really good quality crime fiction from a wide range of backgrounds and perspectives.
The compilation is made up of 36 stories (too many to list here anyway) from a diverse range of writers and countries. That's part of what's great about this...Read more
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
A DISSECTION OF MURDER is the first in a series of books from Western Australian author Felicity Young. Set in London at the turn of the twentieth Century, featuring Dr Dody McCleland, the first female autopsy surgeon, the action in this book takes place in the midst of the Suffragette...Read more
Please don't ask me what the correct order of this series is, as I've got absolutely no idea. I've never found the need to worry about it as each book works on its own, and each book is one of those little pieces of joy that just make you feel good.
Part of it has got to be...Read more
It is possible that the reader of a lot of mystery fiction could come to BAY OF FIRES with a predisposition to like it very much. It's an unusual twist on what is, frequently, a rather formulaic style. More importantly, it's a lot more about the people involved in a community than the...Read more
With tongue firmly in cheek, and only because I live in the Pyrenees wine district, yes, well why on earth WOULD somebody kill for a Heathcote shiraz??? (Kidding!)
There's nothing better than books that are set in your own stomping grounds. Places that are very familiar,...Read more
The 11th Montalbano book this is a series that I'm tragically reading out of order, behind the publication dates and sadly not often enough.
Of course fans know about the food, and the scenery, and the grumpiness of Montalbano. Combine that with the vague lunacy of the members...Read more
The third in the Peter Clancy series, BLURLINE takes Clancy to swinging London and the edges of the "red-top" newspaper world. Granted he headed there with high hopes of getting a job in slightly more salubrious circumstances, but needs must and when the money starts running low, a...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
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
In the process of researching the background to BOOM AND BUST I found some information on a trilogy of books Angus Gillies has written about the 1985 to 1990 terror campaign of a Maori sect calling themselves the Rastafarians - in Ruatoria on the East Coast of New Zealand's North Island....Read more
Cass Tuplin has returned in second book DEAD MEN DON'T ORDER FLAKE. Proprietor of the recently rebuilt Rusty Bore Takeway, she's a fish, chip and dim sim dispenser extraordinaire with a sideline in private enquiries. Which means she's one of those slightly nosy women who can find out stuff...Read more
I had no idea what to expect when I sat down to read VILLAIN, although the Japan Book News quote on the back of the book "... lays out a panorama of modern Japanese society, a patchwork composed of people of various classes and occupations..." really appealed. And the book most definitely...Read more
Author Tony Cavanaugh has had a long and illustrious career in film and tv and thus brings that excellent crafting of place and character to his crime novels. All of his creations are wholly convincing and though sketched with typical Australian economy, they are entirely recognizable in...Read more
Hate it when a new book from a much loved series lingers too long on the reading pile simply because of competing priorities. No disrespect intended at all in how long it took me to get to this entry, and much pleasure when I finally did. Anyway they come, I'm quite a fan of the Pufferfish...Read more
I forgot NOTHING BAD HAPPENS HERE was a debut novel as you'd never know it from reading it. Set in the sort of small town in New Zealand that caters mostly to the summer tourist trade, journalist Miller Hatcher is sent there when the body of a tourist who went missing a while ago is...Read more
Peter May's Lewis Trilogy isn't a new undertaking, originally published in 2009, but it's one of those series I've had flagged in my audio book queue for a long time, and recently I've been fortunate enough to have a lot of available listening time and a desire for something that was dark,...Read more
The third book in the Ngaire Blakes series, THE ONLY SECRET LEFT TO KEEP finds Blakes back in the police force (see my review of the second book: ...Read more