A vigilante with a message. The outsider detective. A cold case they both want solved.
Rachael Schlank is a straight-talking detective who’s always felt like a fish out of water, bouncing between departments over the years. Now she’s finally found a home in Victoria Police's Cold...Read more
Dr Ellis is enjoying a quiet evening with his journalist friend Cass, when their mysterious neighbour, Mrs Moxton, bursts in upon them with startling news - her husband has been murdered! Rushing to the scene, the two men discover Mr Moxton, stabbed in the back, the only clue to his...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
This has been a book that's been in the back of my mind as a "must read" for a long time. It combines that most fascinating (to me) of components of crime fiction - a mystery and an insight into life and the thinking of another culture - one that's totally different to my own. Whilst a...Read more
The first book, THE HOLIDAY MURDERS marked a change in series, but not style, for author Robert Gott. Much of this author's crime fiction writing has concentrated on historical time periods, in particular around the second world war.
This reader was very impressed with the...Read more
BROKEN SILENCE is the story of seventeen-year-old Kelsey, a kid who has had a lot to deal with in life. Confused and very vulnerable, she cared for her gravely ill mother until she had to go into care. Her remarried father has disappeared from her life, and Kelsey finds herself living in a...Read more
Stella is the only child of Adam, a pastor, and Ulrika, a lawyer. Stella is now of legal age and looks forward to soon taking an Asian holiday with her best friend since childhood, Amina. The two teenagers have been through much together and of course, know a lot more about each other’s...Read more
There are plenty of books around that read a bit like a script in the making, and a lot of them don't work. And then there's BLOOD RIVER that reads like a script in the making, a most unusual crime fiction novel that works. Oh boy does it work. Tony Cavanaugh is the author of the stonkingly...Read more
BORKMANN'S POINT is the second book in the Inspector Van Veeteren series, but the only one currently available in English. Nesser lives in Sweden and has set his book in a fictitious small Scandinavian town.
An ex-con is murdered by a blow from a very unusual, extremely sharp...Read more
Sheerwater is an emotionally charged work of both hope and despair, beginnings and endings. Calling this book a thriller won’t be doing it a disservice, but it may give the expectation to the reader that they are about to dive into a work of suspense with no lingering take-homes to mull...Read more
It is difficult to read of women’s lives being micromanaged by their domestic captors to the point of scheduled toilet breaks, and of young children being raised entirely behind closed doors. These are hard novels to take on. If you are reading this because you have heard Dear Child...Read more
The third book in the Alex Clayton Art Mystery series sees a shift of setting to the Western District of Victoria and one of those big pastoral leases that were such a part of the landscape down there. The title of the novel "The Shifting Landscape" is quite cleverly pitched referring as it...Read more
New Years Eve often involves some reflection, some celebration, and some odd goings on. For Aimee, Melinda and Lou, starting out their celebration with an illegal Chinese lantern ceremony. Filling each lantern with their own resolution, the women light them and they lift off, after which...Read more
In this current political climate, the rise of the ugly, radicalised individual is all too real, and the reflection of this in quiet, idyllic New Zealand somehow more shocking. Drafted originally before the appalling Christchurch mosque shootings in 2019, Alan Carter has chosen to (in his...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 start of what one selfishly hopes is a long series, THE LONG GAME, introduces readers to Detective Sergeant Zoe Mayer. She's back at work after a traumatic incident, working with her old homicide partner Charlie, accompanied by her service dog, the gorgeous Harry, who helps her handle...Read more
Before proceeding any further, it's worth repeating the trigger warning from the blurb for DIETVALE:
"Contains torture and rape. The retribution is both swift and brutal."
The story, in a nutshell, is one of recently divorced Marilyn, who, in an attempt to regain...Read more
DARK EMPIRE is an historical mystery novel, with at it's core, characters created by Katherine Mansfield:
"Katherine Mansfield created some of literature’s most chilling characters, not least Harry Kember and his wife. They seemed out of place among the families enjoying summer...Read more
SPRIGS by Brannavan Gnanalingam is a searing expose of white, male privilege and the brazen underpinning of enablement and support that seemingly encourages, and if required, covers-up the actions of young men. Trigger Warning: It's about a gang rape, young men and an even younger victim....Read more
The second George Manolis novel sees him flying from Australia to Greece on an extended holiday after a turbulent time. Recently divorced, mourning the death of his much loved father, Manolis returns to the place of his father's birth - the Prespes region which straddles the borders of...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
This audio book was part of my revisit of the entire Parlabane series so I was cheating a bit, having already done "all the emotions" over the opening line of the blurb.
I do get the idea of telegraphing the end of Jack and the whole Parlabane series was going to grab some...Read more
THE SIGNATORY is a thriller set in and around an Australian advertising agency, leaving this reviewer wondering if there's an argument that crime fiction set in the corporate / business world is under-represented. On the face of it, perhaps an unlikely setting, but then again, there are...Read more
Okay, I've said it before, and I'll say it again, what DO they put in the water supply in Scotland. Or maybe it's because of the notoriously dire weather - people are indoors and a percentage of them turn to writing. Don't know. But whatever it is, I hope they keep it up as there are some...Read more
The Marshall Grade series is American noir of the minimalist, dark kind, bought to you by New Zealander Ben Sanders.
The first book AMERICAN BLOOD (reviewed at http://reviewingtheevidence.com/review.html?id=10540...Read more
One of those series that I plucked from a long list on Audible when looking for something new and fun to listen to. Sometimes the universe is very good to you.
A MAN WITH ONE OF THOSE FACES was such good fun with madcap action and activities, really engaging characters, and a...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
In Sulari Gentill’s new novel, aspiring writer Theo and her brother Gus become embroiled in increasingly bizarre conspiracy theories. Full Review at Newtown Review of BooksRead more
The biggest problem I'm finding with the audio versions of the Thursday Murder Club entrants, THE LAST DEVIL TO DIE being the latest, is that the blasted things fly past in the blink of an eye. Even at silly number of chapters they just simply disappear, leaving me wanting more too quickly...Read more
There's a really nice interpretation of classic golden age mystery styling at the heart of this lovely little novel set in the early white settlement period of rural, remote Western Australia.
Cleverly balanced between the personal story of Ana, the adopted daughter of the owners...Read more