Sorted on book title (not in series order)
The Lone Child focusses on character development, imbued with sadness, longing, regret and loss.
Following on from her stunning debut novel, What Came Before, Anna George has created another claustrophobic and compelling...Read more
A short story, THE LONELY AUSTRALIAN OF THE ASIAN NIGHT packs a punch in a few pages. With the proviso that you're going to be spending some time in the head of a deeply miserable bloke - one who was a boxer, a grafter and a bit of a loser to be honest. In Melbourne, in his teens, he'd been...Read more
LONELYHEART 4122 sees the introduction of Miss Lucilla (Lucy) Teatime to the mayhem that is Flaxborough and the series is all the better for her presence.
Originally published in the late 1960's, this is a time of matrimonial agencies (and is now a good time to admit I was...Read more
A standalone novel from the author best known for his Bob Skinner series, THE LONER was a real surprise package.
Styled as an autobiographical account of the author's friend, journalist Xavier (Xavi) Ailsado, THE LONER is partially the recollections of the central character,...Read more
Claustrophobic, atmospheric, dark and insular, THE LONEY is part psychological thriller, part literary character study, and one of those books that is hard to categorise.
The central narrator of the book is a young boy who is forced, yearly, to endure an odd religious...Read more
It’s a bit daunting knowing that in order to try a new-to-you series author (that everyone else raves about), a reader faces ploughing through quite a long back catalogue. It was good news to discover that the award-winning author Ann Cleeves has created a fresh protagonist for this brand...Read more
Barry Weston's debut novel THE LONG CON, brings Queenslander and ex-cop, now PI, Frank Cousins to the mean streets of Hobart in search of a client, good pizza, a lot of booze and coffee, and with a bit of luck, Detective Sharon Becker. In the aftermath of The Fitzgerald Inquiry into Police...Read more
A summer of relentless heat. A local surfer named Ray Carlson is found dead in a house not far from Portsea back beach. There’s a silver-handled kitchen knife deep in his chest, and blood everywhere.
Detective Sergeant Zoe Mayer is scarcely back from extended leave, and still...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
THE LONG GLASGOW KISS is the second book from Craig Russell featuring Lennox, Canadian raised, returned soldier, Private Investigator who dances a fine line between the law and the gangsters. Glasgow in the 1950's is controlled by the Three Kings, dangerous men who have divided up the...Read more
LONG WAY HOME was released in 2014 and quickly garnered a lot of very positive comments. At which point it was placed on my reading list and then never quite nudged it's way to the top. Nothing to do with it at all, rather a propensity to be useless at prioritising books and the sudden...Read more
THE LONG WEEKEND is the debut, self-published crime fiction novel from Victorian based author Terry R. Barca. Set in inner Melbourne, using the beautiful Windsor Hotel as a backdrop for most of the action, it features recently retired / newly married Sam and his wife Scarlett on a relaxing...Read more
A Thriller, LOOK CLOSER, is set in London against the backdrop of British Politics, but the scenario could be played out in any similar democracy.
When Will Fletcher's journalist girlfriend Amy is badly wounded in an assassination attempt on the likely next PM, nobody even...Read more
Where LOSING LEAH begins is a country mile from where it ends up and that is all to the good.
Causing a disturbance at a truck stop is a distressed traveller, Chris Hills, who claims that his wife Leah has vanished. It was planned to be only a brief stop for the couple who...Read more
All novels by Finn Bell have guaranteed two things. Wonderful sense of place, and morally ambiguous characters. As it is with THE LOST DEAD where we have three Maori boys, wanted criminals, on the run, barely one step ahead of the cops and the gangs they have annoyed along the way. There is...Read more
Wendy James has once more taken a close up, and uncomfortable look at the reality of family secrets. Something that she's not only specialising in, she's particularly good at into the bargain.
We're programmed to think that the family unit is safe, staid, even boring (perhaps...Read more
I'm going to start this review in an odd way, by declaring that I didn't like Jane Harper's second book FORCE OF NATURE as much as I had been expecting to. Initially I thought this was because it read like an idea that Aaron Falk had been hammered into it later on, weakening the plot,...Read more
Writers who take the decision to build their novels around characters who are less than sympathetic, veering towards frustrating, appear to be making one of the braver literary decisions you can come across. Needless to say Rebecca Wilding is a difficult prospect in THE LOST SWIMMER....Read more
THE LOST TAONGA and A SUITABLE TIME FOR VENGEANCE by Edmund Bohan were both entered in the 2018 Ngaio Marsh Awards, with THE LOST TAONGA making it onto the longlist. Both these books are from Bohan's Inspector O'Rorke series (six and seven respectively), historical crime fiction set in New...Read more
It's a question that has preyed on a lot of people's minds over the years - why do women fall for, and stay with, the worst possible men? What author Laura Elizabeth Woollett has done is imagine her author's pen into the minds and lives of some of these women in her series of short stories...Read more
I do like a bit of a romp novel, and LOVE HONOUR AND O'BRIEN is nothing if not a bit of a romp. Which surprised me a bit - because the blurb sounded just a little dauntingly like it might be too chick-lit for me. But Jennifer Rowe's return to mystery writing has hugely exciting, so...Read more
This is one of those little books that I've been keeping an eye out for over the last few years, finally tracking down a copy recently. At 141 pages it was just the right size for dropping into the suitcase that we're dragging backwards and forwards between houses at the moment....Read more
It's always a joy to visit with Tom Thorne who makes firm decisions according to his own moral code and does not sweat the consequences of his actions. Thorne's personal life, now fourteen novels in, has settled into that of (mostly) peaceful cohabitation with his partner Helen and her son...Read more
Dr Siri Paiboun has got to be one of the all time great fictional characters. Irascible, kind, determined, a bit of a push-over, loving, stern, gentle, pushy, pig-headed, he's just so magnificently real. I know I say this a lot, but if you've never read any of Colin Cotterill's fantastic...Read more
Bleak, stark, pitiless, violent, hypnotic and strangely satisfying was my immediate reaction to THE LOW ROAD, and interestingly it's staying with me for quite a while after I've finished it. Mind you, THE LOW ROAD is not by any means an easy or enjoyable book.
Bleak - well...Read more
THE LOW ROAD is an austere portrait of two of life’s losers. Lee has never really had a chance. He lost his parents suddenly at the age of ten. Wild, on the other hand, was successful and threw it all away. Lee is incapacitated through his gunshot wound. Wild is so hopelessly addicted...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
Jockey McAuley is 15 years old, with no idea what he's going to do with his life, when he somehow or other ends up working for Mr Hardaker at Paton Electrical. His job - well it's odd. It's mostly to shadow Mr Hardaker and watch / listen and remember everything that happens. Somewhere in...Read more
Obviously one of the most commented on aspects of THE LUMINARIES is the size. Clocking in at 830+ pages this is not a book for fans of thrillers, or fast reads, not just because of its sheer size, but because of the dense nature of the writing and the story. Set in 1866, this novel feels...Read more
Upside, Neil Cross has written some fantastic recent books. Downside, LUTHER THE CALLING has a connection with a TV series which I've never seen. So interesting to see if a fabulous author has written a fabulous book, regardless of whatever's been going on over on the small screen. ...Read more