As I was reading this novel, I was finishing the autobiography THIS MUCH IS TRUE by Miriam Margolyes in audio form and I was struck by the coincidence of some of the things that she says most powerfully and pointedly, about dehumanisation, the utter and abject cruelty of "Empire" and the...Read more
From the Blurb: Marius Valstar doesn’t know which is worse: the dead body in his greenhouse or the naked fae prince on his desk.
The only rakes of interest to Marius are garden tools. Not fae princes. Certainly not the arrogant, selfish fae prince he has the...Read more
Pete McAuslan is Vietnam Vet, and retired police officer, now holed up in the family's remote cabin near the small Tasmanian town of Mole Creek, writing his memoir. His grandson Xander is a Sydney based journalist, and they are close. So close that the shock of the death of Pete, and the...Read more
When Marshall Grade agrees to meet his former NYPD colleague Ray Vialoux, he does not expect Ray to end up dead on the floor of a New York restaurant. Full Review at: Newtown Review of Books...Read more
The Akashic Noir series is a brilliant idea (I have SYDNEY NOIR on the piles at present). The whole thing is a series of Noir styled short story collections from all around the world, launched originally in 2004 with BROOKLYN NOIR.
This collection of stories from Brazil is a...Read more
Helen FitzGerald is one of those authors who really knows how to write engaging and very offputting central characters that you care about, despite their obvious failings, flaws, and downright stupidity from time to time. As is the case in HALFWAY HOUSE where central character Lou O'Dowd is...Read more
A short story that is officially flagged as 9.5 in the Vera Stanhope series, this is another one of those serendipitous pickups from the BorrowBox catalogue when I was looking for a short story to fill in a bit of time.
Set up as the precursor to THE RISING TIDE, it introduces...Read more
SHADOW BROKER is a standalone novel from NZ based author Tina Clough. It's a thriller in style, set in the future, where individual freedoms have been severely curtailed and state surveillance is omnipresent. When coded messages are found on a burner phone, they reveal a shadowy mastermind...Read more
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
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 author of this series was born in South Africa, but has lived in Sydney, Australia for a long time. PRESENT TENSE is the first, followed by SHADOW CITY (https://www.austcrimefiction.org/review/shadow-city-...Read more
Fans of the Bee Gees might find themselves with psychological issues post reading or listening to THE HITCHHIKER. I'm not sure I'll hear the particular track that's on high rotation in the car at the centre of much of the action here without a slight twitch ever again to be honest....Read more
Between 1865 and 1910 Mary Fortune wrote over 500 crime stories, set in the Victorian goldfields, Melbourne and the outback. Published initially in newspapers and the like, they form the first detective fiction series written by a woman, although she was published under a series of pseudonyms hiding both her real identity and her gender from the wider world.Read more
‘If you know where to look, kiddo, the world is full of magic and monsters.’
Six-year-old Henry believes his life is a fairytale. He’s a Star Prince, his mum is a Star Queen and they’re hiding from Henry’s father, the mysterious ‘Wolf King’.
When news arrives that his...Read more
One of the strangest things about reading THE PATIENCE OF THE SPIDER was the weird sort of feeling that I knew the story at the beginning. And your reviewer is nothing but sharp - about 20 pages in the penny dropped - one of the recently screened TV-Movies on our local SBS TV was based on...Read more
The bodies of two young girls are found, shot and discarded in an old abandoned warehouse in the Cockpit Lane district in Brixton, London. Nearby the activity of the police investigation sparks the interest of a young schoolboy who is obsessed with a school myth about "Brown Bread" and an...Read more
Jack Taylor is changing. Shattered by the shooting of Cody, the young man who came to him for a chance, Jack feels for Cody like a man would for his natural son. Cody is comatose in hospital and even though he didn't pull the trigger, Jack feels responsible for Cody's fate. This has given...Read more
When Hardy got himself into hot water in THE UNDERTOW, you just had to wonder if this was the end of Sydney's most famous hard-boiled detective. In APPEAL DENIED he doesn't get his licence to be a private investigator back; he's got no money; his house and car are falling apart and his...Read more
If you are teetering on the edge of fully-fledged vegetarianism FLESH HOUSE could be the trigger that pushes you over. MacBride is one of those author's who seem to be able to take the grotesque, the frequently cruel and absolutely obscene and wrap that in humanity. FLESH HOUSE is one of...Read more
Nigel Latta is a clinical psychologist who specialises in assessing and treating sex offenders. It's dark place he has to visit on a regular basis and EXECUTION LULLABY reflects that. It's a compelling read if you have the stomach for it, with a very clever twist at the end. I found...Read more
What makes a book special for you? For me it’s when the characters and the story stays with you after you’ve closed the book. All too often once the book is finished , the details begin to fade almost immediately. Not so with DEVIL’S PEAK by Deon Meyer
The alcoholic detective...Read more
There's something in the water (or maybe it's in the dust) in Africa at the moment. Whilst there has been a slowly increasing number of crime or mystery books set in Africa, there's now an increasing number written by African authors appearing for our enjoyment. Michael Stanley (the South...Read more
You'd be hard put to think of another mystery series, with a female protagonist that is set in the Australian outback so on this alone, perhaps author Brownyn Parry has chosen her setting and thus her market very well. We have somewhat of an old fashioned girl leading the action in this...Read more
Originally published in the 1940's the Gervase Fen mysteries are one of those rights of passage for crime lovers. Or at least they were in my house as I was growing up. Vintage Books have done us all an enormous favour in turning their attention back to some of the classic books - and...Read more
The problem with an author making it onto my "Pre-Order IMMEDIATELY list" is that once the book arrives I have that dreaded "do I read immediately or hoard" dilemma. It's easier with some of my all time favourite authors - there's a few, well not to put too fine a point on it, aren't as...Read more
Hands up everyone who has ever thought that owning a secondhand bookshop sounds like their idea of a perfect life. If your hand is in the air you might have a problem. Reading DE LUXE is either going to put you off the idea - or make it seem just that bit too exciting. Personally I still...Read more
It was rather pleasing to see DUBLIN DEAD, mostly because O'Donovan's first book, The Priest, actually managed to get me to rethink my "over serial killer" books stance. So no pressure on this one... at all.
There is some reference back to The Priest in DUBLIN DEAD, which is...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
Living on the edge of the Pyrenees (the ones in Victoria, Australia), surrounded as we are by wineries and winemakers, it's was a rather interesting experience to find myself reading TREACHERY IN BORDEAUX which is steeped in wine-making tradition, methodology, and a dash of intrigue....Read more
You can't help thinking that this is an interesting idea for a book, the story of one of the most famous real-life spies, told from the point of view of Philby's own life. Now the book and it's publicity material is quite tricky about the background of this book. Whilst there's nothing...Read more