Crime Fiction

In 2008 we decided to move - away from the most fire-prone area on the immediate outskirts of Melbourne - to somewhere where we had more room to move, and co-incidentally where we would feel safer.  The possibility of catastrophic fire events had weighed heavily on our minds - as the...Read more

Second in the Hal Challis series, Kittyhawk Down is an extremely busy book. Firstly there's the upper class sort of "gated" housing area, the farming area and the housing estates. There's a sinister South African living in one of those big gated houses. There's Monroe, the farmer, who is...Read more

Third in the Dan Forrester series, we're into classic thriller mode now with this series. Heaps of action, a fast moving, multi threaded plot, this one creates a partnership quickly between Forrester and ongoing series character Lucy Davies that works well. Again we have a couple of main...Read more

The first in a new series of books set in India, THE KOLKATA CONUNDRUM is lyrical and amusing writing, steeped in a sense of place and culture that will leave readers craving more.

Young Orko Deb is the much doted on son of a mechanic father, not at all interested in stepping...Read more

It's great to see police procedurals set in rural Australia that don't assume that everything's sinister and vaguely barking mad, and that reflects some of the dry humour, and resilience of both the cops and the locals.

KUNDELA perhaps errs a little to much to that descriptive...Read more

Penguin Green Classics have provided an excellent opportunity to read, collect and revisit classic crime fiction titles. In the case of LADY AUDLEY'S SECRET, readers get an opportunity to return to a book from the Victorian era.

Shocking and an absolute sensation in its time -...Read more

Kjell Westo is a Swedish speaking Finnish author, who has previously published poetry, short stories and three novels. LANG is his first suspense / crime novel.

The central character, Lang, is a twice divorced, well-known novelist and host of a TV discussion panel show in...Read 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

J.P. Pomare won the Ngaio Marsh Award for Best First Novel with his debut CALL ME EVIE. Since then he's carved out a name for himself when it comes to precisely plotted, atmospheric, tense psychological thrillers populated by cleverly constructed characters, designed to keep readers...Read more

Firstly, it has to be said - the book blurb doesn't do Reich any favours and if he was a real person he'd have every right to be slightly miffed about the description of himself as boorish.  Sure he's a little stiff and formal in the early part of the book, but that's all it is - he's not...Read more

New Zealand author Fiona Sussman has created something absolutely remarkable in her blended crime and contemporary fiction novel THE LAST TIME WE SPOKE. Winner of the ...Read more

The scope of THE LAST is reasonably small, and this focus on largely just the one location makes it a very personal account of one visiting American who is displaced at the time of nuclear war.  A group of people, only temporarily connected through all staying or working at the same hotel,...Read more

This is a novella that I picked up from Amazon based on some comments I'd seen about the author's writing style, which turned out to be right. This is a great little novella that introduces a murder, an investigator and his sidekick, fleshes out his background and gives me some personality...Read more

LEFT LUGGAGE is the debut novel of Sydney based author Andrew Christie. Set mostly in and around Newtown and inner Sydney it combines an unlikely cast of central characters: John - an ex-Army house renovator; Betty - his Australian-born, French resident, famous war photographer mother;...Read more