Sorted on book title (not in series order)
THE QUEEN OF POISONS is book number 3 in The Marlow Murder Club, which is also now a TV series. Not at all surprising, it definitely has a "perfect for TV feeling" to the stories, it's quite good fun, and written by Robert Thorogood, the man behind the Death in Paradise series. ...Read more
From the moment that Billy Hotchkiss hits Hell Corner on the opening lap of the Bathurst 1000 you can tell he's a man on a mission. That's likely to end up pear-shaped as everyone knows that "The Mountain" is an unforgiving beast. And sure enough, he throws the Commodore at Frosty...Read more
If ever there was a book that shows that the Best Swedish Crime Novel award needs to be closely followed, QUICKSAND is it. Scandinoir remains one of the big things in worldwide crime fiction, but, as you'd expect, there can sometimes be a little sameness to the sub genre. Which is not...Read more
A slow burn psychological thriller, QUIET IN HER BONES is beautifully executed with a pace that seems to stroll along, focusing mostly on a range of characters that stand out from the page.
Socialite Nina Rai vanished ten years ago, along with a quarter of a million dollars in...Read more
Back when I first discovered Paul Cleave's books and the Theodore Tate series in particular, I did wonder if he really liked frightening the living daylights out of his readers. I'm not talking horror or anything here, but the creepy, persistent sense of terror that invades those books has...Read more
My return to series in the car is currently alternating between Terry Pratchett's Discworld books and all of Christopher Brookmyre's early work. Both of them are an utter joy to listen to, and a potential threat to life and limb.
Car journeys here are, by necessity, long....Read more
It's not unknown for crime fiction followers to point out that it frequently explores the rights and wrongs of society and human behaviour. Because of that it's reasonable to expect that the settings, and central subject matter have unlimited scope, but I think this is the first book I can...Read more
RAGDOLL is the debut novel of author Daniel Cole. With a second series entry due out in 2018, this is great news for readers of UK police procedurals. We're emotionally invested pretty soon into the read as RAGDOLL’s strongest inclusion is its large cast of diverse characters. Some...Read more
Frequent readers of crime fiction tend to be over some plot element or standard form or another. It's hard to avoid getting a little jaded when a particular structure shows up time and time again - and in my case it's been serial killers for sometime now. Which does at least mean that it's...Read more
Rain Dogs, a stunning installment in the Sean Duffy thriller series, following the Edgar Award-nominated Gun Street Girl, is "another standout in a superior series" (Booklist).It's just the same things over and again for Sean Duffy: riot duty, heartbreak, cases he can solve but never get to...Read more
Readers of Adrian McKinty's Sean Duffy series (of which this is book 5), might be excused for wondering if he's more than a little fascinated by locked room scenarios. The use of that scenario in 2014's IN THE MORNING I'LL BE GONE is referred back to directly in RAIN DOGS. There's a larger...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
One of the things that I really like about reading review books is that I constantly find absolutes in my reading tastes aren't. Ask me about serial killer books before reading RANDOM and I would have categorically stated been there, over it. Add being inside the serial killer's head for...Read more
In a particularly poignant touch, all round good guy and saver of the world Alex Morgan shows an unsurprising side in RANGER with his care and concern for a returned vet who needs help.
This novella sees Morgan returning from rescue duties, to be immediately redirected to the...Read more
The fourth novel in the DCI Jim Daley series by Denzil Meyrick, THE RAT STONE SERENADE is set, as always, around the rural town of Kinloch on Scotland's West Coast. A place that is not unused to cold, wet weather, although the monumental snow storm that covers the landscape in this outing...Read more
It's quite possible that there will be a few moments during the reading of this novel where you will want to punch the air in pride. Our man Rebus still has the sharpest wit around and eases his way around tricky situations with the practiced air of one who expects little of others but...Read more
Barry Maitland’s Brock and Kolla series is back for its 12th outing with The Raven’s Eye, set on the canals and houseboats of the Thames. Full Review at...Read more
London's Slough House is where disgraced MI5 operatives are reassigned to spend the rest of their careers pushing paper. But when one of these fallen spies is kidnapped by a former soldier bent on revenge, the agents must breach the defenses of Regent's Park to steal valuable intel in...Read more
Somewhere in the back of my head, as I've read more and more books set in Australia, there's always been a little question. Which RED DIRT TALKING has answered. Why can't we have more books written from the Aboriginal perspective? And what better way to look at that perspective from the...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
Historical crime fiction with a political basis, Jonothan Cullinane's RED HERRING is set in 1950's Auckland during a time of confrontation between workers and the government. Based on the waterfront it's fascinating how this sort of pitched battle resonates in difficult places, across...Read more
Never having read any of James Phelan's Lachlan Fox series before, RED ICE had to be approached as a standalone, which probably made for a different experience than that of the dedicated fan.
Lachlan Fox is an ex-navy operative turned investigative journalist, and in this book...Read more
There's an immediate dive into the here and now with the opening chapter, each of which is a self contained character study, and each chapter grouping is titled appropriately. Honey Brown touches gently on each chapter as if it were in preparation for a scene change in a film or play. ...Read more
Apocalyptic scenarios are not my favourite thing. To be frank, a pandemic world-wide threat from a mutant viruses wasn't making me feel a desperate urge to read RED QUEEN. I've been shuffling other books over it in the priority queue for quite a while. But eventually, you've just got to...Read more
“The liquorice eyes shine in the sporadic artificial light and I can see the capital ‘G’ on each coin and I can see the stoat features of this poor, scared man. His mouth is wide open like he’s in agony. He has small ears set back and he has tufty whiskers. It’s the man from the canteen...Read more
The fifth book in the Annika Bengtzon series, I've absolutely no idea whether or not the entire series has been translated in order or not. I've sort of lost the plot with this series, probably because the first book - THE BOMBER - didn't appeal a lot. The last I read, PRIME TIME, was...Read more
Taking a big step away from her Kit O'Malley series, Lindy Cameron has created an excellent thriller. Pacey, peopled with strong female characters; good male characters; a complicated yet disconcertingly believable multi-threaded plot and a hefty dose of subtle humour, REDBACK is...Read more
I originally read and reviewed REDBACK when it was released in 2007 by MIRA Press, so when Clan Destine republished it, I was really really interested to see if it would hold up well, particularly given that it has a number of quite topical references (okay well some digs as well) for the...Read more
Okay - a little housekeeping first. I can't get accented characters to work properly here ... yet. I'm working on it because it annoys me as much as it undoubtedly annoys readers of these posts.
Secondly, a little background to the Harry Hole (pronounced - we think - Hurler...Read more
This second book in the Ted Conkaffey series clearly demonstrates why Candice Fox has won two Ned Kelly Awards for crime writing.
Following on from Crimson Lake, Redemption Point is dark, dry, funny, cleverly plotted and populated by...Read more