Jackie and Pete King have lived in Dunmore for years, running one of the two local pubs in the sleepy little town. Money has been tight after the bushfires, and it’s about to get tighter if they can’t find a way to pay their suppliers to keep their business going and keep the bank from...Read more
"A brand new novel that continues the legacy of ‘Master of the Genre’ Desmond Bagley by the co-author of Domino Island."
Insurance investigator Bill Kemp made his first appearance in Domino Island - the story of that novel is best told...Read more
Detective Constable Angus MacVicar has just landed his dream job – transferred out of uniform and assigned to Oldcastle’s biggest ongoing murder Operation Telegram, hunting the 'Fortnight Killer'.
Every two weeks another couple is targeted. One victim is left at the scene, their...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
Bit of explaining first - LAST ONE TO LEAVE and FIND US are available as stand-alone ebooks / novellas. They are also available together in printed form under the title FOOL ME TWICE. I read the two separate novellas, but...Read more
This is gathering together of two DI Steel short stories, one featuring DS Logan McRae (Stramash) and the other (DI Steel's Bad Heir Day) has her giving Constable Guthrie a day to remember.
DI Steel's Bad Heir Day is set around Christmas with her manically buying / wrapping...Read more
If everyone has a book hidden somewhere in them, it seems, these days, it's probably going to be a crime fiction book. It seems inevitable now that "celebrities" will show up at, touting their wares - some with considerably more success than others.
Susie Dent, famous for her...Read more
There have been a number of Australian crime fiction books recently that are tackling the effects of poverty / deprivation / loss and family breakdown in small towns, on small boys in particular. A TOWN CALLED TREACHERY is following, successfully, in the footsteps of authors like Mark...Read more
This was one of those fortuitous pickups in the Audio section of the library's BorrowBox app. Probably based on the reference to Magpie Murders in the blurb, which was a TV series I thoroughly enjoyed. It might also be because of the description of the main protagonist:
...Read more
How to Kill Your Family meets The Power in this entertaining and thought-provoking read, that asks:
If you had the power between life and death, what would you do?
...Read more
For ten years, Logan Booth served as a contract killer for the CIA – he just never knew it. The first book in a blockbuster thriller series from Matt Rogers, million copy bestseller and 'a bright new talent shaking up the genre ' (Candice Fox).
In the twilight of his career, Logan learns...Read more
An historical mystery that mixes fact and fiction, THE WOMAN WHO KNEW TOO LITTLE is set in Adelaide in late 1948. It's a story about female police officers built around the factual case of the Somerton Man, a notorious tale that has captured much speculation for many years until recently...Read more
Sherryl Clark is an author with a keen eye for a fascinating central female character, and Lou Alcott is one out of the box. A Melbourne based Private Investigator with a prominent organised crime figure for a grandfather, she's a disillusioned ex-cop with a major attitude when it comes to...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
Don't be put off by LIARS by James O'Loghlin. It's a biggish book at 464 pages, but it fills that size admirably. Engaging, addictive, and intriguing, it's small town setting is used to build a complex story, with personalities, connections, backgrounds and people that are anything but....Read more
Another one of those periodical restarts of a favourite series, some of which actually get off the ground, some of which linger in the piles of unread books, mostly due to lack of time / organisation (which I'm working on).
THE BAT is the first of the Harry Hole series, which...Read more
No use pretending that the basic premise of this novel, the use of an AIDE entity to assist in a stock standard cold case investigation, headed up by a (not unsurprisingly) sceptical DCS Kat Frank, was what grabbed my attention. So much noise about AI, so little accuracy, so why not an AIDE...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
Eve Sylvester is a young, very naive girl with a lot of tragedy in her life. Raised partly in the foster care system, she's been restlessly moving around most of her life, when a chance meeting with a young Australian man overseas leads to a yacht journey home. It's a short lived period of...Read more
DEATH OF A COUNTESS is set in May, 1957, London. In the aftermath of WWII, a group of friends are gathering for a party. Displaced people, they survived the worst of Hitler's concentration camps, so this party is a chance for them to celebrate their liberty, as well as to reconnect with...Read more
The 2nd in the Milverton Mysteries featuring Addison Harper, this is a series that's on the cosier, English Village styled end of the mystery scale. Although that setting is delivered with a dry, very wry tone, and a great sense of petty politics in a pretty village.
It's...Read more
Evoking a particularly poignant sense of the time period in which it is set, SOUTHERN AURORA is yet another pitch perfect book from Mark Brandi exploring intergenerational damage, domestic violence, small town and rural life and young boy's experiences - good and bad.
Raw,...Read more
KILL YOURS, KILL MINE (aka SEVEN SISTERS) is a standalone novel from Katherine Kovacic, a beautifully written, powerful, provocative take on the concept of justice and vengeance, coming from a place of grief, guilt and the failure of the justice system. It's based around the deaths of women...Read more
LEAVE THE GIRLS BEHIND is the latest offering from Jacqueline Bublitz, after the absolutely fascinating BEFORE YOU KNEW MY NAME. This is a different beast entirely, although it's again set in the USA, featuring a strong, unusual central female character.
Ruth-Ann Baker is a...Read more
The second novel in the Schalk Lourens series, SHADOW CITY uses his home of South Africa as one location for the story, introducing a new character, Sergeant Jackie Rose to lead the action in Sydney. The story begins with the discovery of the body of a battered and tortured young woman in a...Read more
I (tried) listening to this much acclaimed Japanese book, which is very much focused on cooking and food, with a sideline inspired by the true story of a convicted con woman and serial killer. An unusual sort of a story, it's all a long slow build up, which hints at, but doesn't necessarily...Read more
To be honest - read the blurb on this and nearly made it a hard pass. But I do love Only Murders in the Building, so I am relieved I paid no attention to my initial reservations, started reading and a few chapters in, was highly amused and very engaged.
On one hand it's all a...Read more
In Claire Sutherland’s debut crime novel, a body is found on an isolated track on the Wimmera Plains, where Mount Arapiles towers over all. Full Review at Newtown Review of BooksRead more
UNBLESSED is the latest in the Jane Halifax series of books, featuring the TV series character of the same name. A forensic psychologist, Halifax has worked with all sorts of criminal types - from serial to opportunistic killers, and in the last book, herself, when she suffers from sudden...Read more
The second novel from author Bronwyn Hall, THE CHASM is set in and around a fictional small town in Victoria's rugged mountains. Andy King has returned to Stonefield 10 years after her boyfriend, Will Hoffman, disappeared without a trace, something all the locals blamed her for. Despite the...Read more