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
NEST OF VIPERS is the second book in the Empress of Rome series. Author Luke Devenish has a resume that seems to hint at an ability to build a fantasy world. A novelist, screenwriter, playwright and Lecturer, Devenish was a Script Producer with Neighbours and a writer on Home and Away....Read more
The third novel in the Dan Calder series, the title FROZEN SUMMER is the nickname Calder's girlfriend has given to a cold case that he's slightly obsessed with - and not just because he's the only suspect....
Following on from THE AGENCY and THE SECOND GRAVE, this series is one...Read more
An assassin thriller with a twist CUTTING THE CORD features Amira Knox, a member of a secret terrorist group - the Authenticity Movement. Raised in the group, after being adopted by the leader as an infant, Amira and her siblings have been trained as an elite group of assassins, tasked with...Read more
This review comes with what is now the standard warning, this really is a series that needs to be read in order. There's a lot going on with Special Agent Ellie Iverson and it always feels like the backstory helps enormously when keeping everything that is happening sorted out....Read more
The fifth Dr Anya Crichton book from Kathryn Fox, DEATH MASK combines Anya's forensic physician role with an exploration of professional sport and sexual misconduct. Sexual misconduct is too mild a description really - this book explores the very murky world of mob-behaviour, gang rape,...Read more
DEATH BEYOND THE LIMIT is the third novel in the Fiji Island Mysteries series featuring superstar ex-Rugby player, now Police Inspector, Joe Horseman. This is one of those series that will work really well if you're reading it in order, but luckily won't matter too much if you don't....Read more
Before starting out, this review is going to contain possible SPOILERS. I'm finding it almost impossible to talk about CATCH US THE FOXES without them.
Flagged as Twin Peaks meets The Dry, this is also described as a deliciously dark and twisted...Read more
Des Hunt was a science and technology teacher for many years, interspersed with periods of curriculum development both in New Zealand and overseas, and he's an author that seems need little or no introduction to readers in his native land. RED EDGE is, however, the first of his books I've...Read more
Aimed at getting younger generations to read books (and I'd guess particularly boys), DEADHEAD is a very funny romp, populated by wonderful characters, incorporating messaging about power balances and friendship that's subtle, and cleverly executed.
Combining text and cartoon...Read more
NZ-based Charity Norman’s sixth novel is her second to be shortlisted for Best Crime Novel in the Ngaio Marsh Awards. Full review at Newtown Review of Books...Read more
Everyone is going to be talking about EVERYONE IN MY FAMILY HAS KILLED SOMEONE, because it's fiendishly clever, dryly funny (well as funny as a crime novel with a very high body count is going to get), complicated without being overly so, different, and well, relatable, in a weird sort of...Read more
The second in the Reggie da Costa Mystery series from local author Laraine Stephens, DEADLY INTENT is set in Melbourne, in October 1923.
In this outing, heavy rains have battered Melbourne, and local crime reporter Reggie da Costa finds himself at the centre of a story when he...Read more
Ended up listening to this as an audiobook after mildly panicking that the third in the series was about to lob, and I was still struggling to get to this debut on the teetering unread pile. Glad I did.
Fans of this style of novel will be well aware of the buzz around THE...Read more
In 2022 Jacqueline Bublitz's novel BEFORE YOU KNEW MY NAME won both the Best Novel and Best First Novel categories of the Ngaio Marsh awards. It was the first time this had occurred since the award was established in 2010, and there are some really good reasons for that.
There'...Read more
Kirsty Jagger’s debut novel is a confronting story about growing up in the worst of circumstances, and how violence and poverty can happen to anyone. Full Review at Newtown Review...Read more
In 2018, Katherine Ashworth is struggling. The death of her daughter has precipitated a major falling apart, which she's self-medicating with sleeping pills and vodka. A move to the small town of her husband's childhood - Lowbridge - is the beginning of the fight for Katherine to regain a...Read more
Part of a series of novels placing real life historical events in a modern setting, NOTORIOUS deals with one of England's past mysteries - the Princes in the Tower, and the enigma that was Richard III. The modern setting revolves around a world famous arty family, the Snows. Belle is a...Read more
To say that author Lauren Roche has taken on a mammoth undertaking with MILA AND THE BONE MAN is possibly one of the bigger understatements this reviewer has uttered. There is so much happening in this coming of age story, which is more than just that - it's an exploration of consequences,...Read more
The second book in the Dublin Trilogy (which is probably the 2nd published, but the 6th in the "trilogy", so between this and Adrian McKinty's trilogy which isn't, Ireland obviously does trilogies differently). Anyway, THE DAY THAT NEVER COMES, is also the name of a song by Metallica (or so...Read more
This is a tricky one to review. On the one hand I really like this character, and the series has covered some interesting aspects of policing. On the other hand they come with enormous info dumps, none more obvious than the aspects of how and what happens on surveillance jobs in MAN. MADE....Read more
The first book in a planned series of post-war literary crime novels, DEATH OF A FOREIGN GENTLEMAN by Steven Carroll was released in April 2024. Not sure when the next one is due for release but I'll be standing by for it when it arrives.
Set in 1947, in Cambridge England,...Read more
2nd in the Hawthorne & Horowitz story, THE SENTENCE IS DEATH continues the author's insertion of themselves into a fictional detective story, featuring the investigative skill of PI Daniel Hawthorne and Horowitz's sometimes less successful conclusion drawing.
If you're new...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
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
I'm really only slightly obsessed with this author's work. Slightly in that just about everything he has written now is automatically high on the read / listen list.
Sometimes, into every life, a bloody good laugh, a bit of craic, some distraction from the general godawfulness...Read more
Martine Kropkowski’s debut crime fiction delves into the devastating consequences of the epidemic of violence against women. Full review at Newtown Review of...Read more
Mounted Trooper Augustus Hawkins was introduced to readers in Fioretti's first novel, BONE LANDS. Returned from active service in the Boer War, he's scarred physically and mentally, tortured by what happened in combat, damaged again by the love he found in the first novel having been...Read more
The second novel from Australian writer Paula Gleeson, BONEY CREEK is set in the dying town of the same name, a hot, dusty, dry place that the world forgot about when the highway bypassed it.
After a traumatic experience in the city, Abbie and Toby move there, the new owners of...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