Sorted on book title (not in series order)

Crime Fiction

Pieces of a Lie, Rowena Holloway

This debut novel is set in small town South Australia, using many of the up and downsides of living in small communities as devices throughout the novel. Protagonist Mina Everton has lived in this town all her life, she knows everybody, and everyone knows her, and her family. Which made...Read more

Pietr the Latvian, Georges Simenon

PIETR THE LATVIAN commences the latest entire series audio quest, having now finished the much loved Discworld novels. I'm also aware I've got a few other series underway in this quest - mostly they've lapsed because I'm easily distracted, or because they've failed to hold interest. This...Read more

Pig's Head, David Owen

An old release - originally published in 1994, Pig's Head is the first in the 4 Pufferfish novels by David Owen and so far it's been the only one I've never been able to get my hands on. Imagine my sheer delight when Kill City in Swanston Street revealed 2 copies!

Detective...Read more

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Pink Tide, Jarad Henry

The Rubens McCauley series is one of those little gems of Australian crime fiction, of which PINK TIDE is the third book. We now find McCauley in a seachange respite from the rigours of inner city St Kilda, stationed in the small coastal town of Jutt Rock, admiring the scenery, chilling out...Read more

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Plaster Sinners, Colin Watson

Wandering around in Wormhole Books in Belgrave South last Saturday, you have no idea how pleased I was to find a copy of Plaster Sinners by Colin Watson. This is the last of his 13 Flaxborough novels that I've been looking for for such a long time.

Colin Watson is one of the...Read more

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Please Do Not Disturb, Robert Glancy

PLEASE DO NOT DISTURB comes with a wonderfully evocative sense of place and people, delivered with an affectionate comic touch. There's something reminiscient in here of lots of these styles of novels set in developing nations, where the people in positions of power and leadership are over...Read more

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Please Don't Leave Me Here, Tania Chandler

Told in three parts, Please Don’t Leave Me Here by Melbourne writer Tania Chandler begins with the story of Brigitte – mother of twins and married to policeman Sam – a normal wife and mother, with a secret.

Part I, ‘Come as You Are’, set in 2008, is the present, after...Read more

The Plot to Kill Peter Fraser, David McGill

This is now the second book by NZ author David McGill that I've read, both of which share a central detecting character, and a style being a combination of true history and crime fiction. The first novel, THE DEATH RAY DEBACLE was set in 1935, and this one, THE PLOT TO KILL PETER FRASER, is...Read more

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Plugged, Eoin Colfer

Not having read any of Eoin Colfer's Artemis Fowl books, I'm guessing from the author's own description of that series as "Die Hard with fairies", that PLUGGED has a hefty dose of the same sort of humour but this time for adults.

Certainly part of one blurb I read "the crime...Read more

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Poet's Cottage, Josephine Pennicott

Josephine Pennicott has written three dark fantasy novels, and won three Scarlet Stiletto Awards from the Sisters in Crime Australia, so it's no surprise that her latest offering, POET'S COTTAGE has a little of the sensibility of both genres.

Set in the small, fictional town of...Read more

Point Zero

A triumph by Seicho Matsumoto (1909-1992), the master of Japanese mystery writing. A beautifully written novel that takes on the taboo of Japanese prostitution catering to GIs during the American post-war occupation.

Tokyo 1958, Teiko marries Kenichi Uehara, ten...Read more

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Points and Lines

A prominent official in a ministry tinged with scandal. A dining car receipt. A name missing from a passenger list. And a young man and woman dead on a beach in an apparent suicide - lovers who had one final drink together. Disconnected points, but not to Detective Torigai, who keeps...Read more

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Points and Lines, Seicho Matsumoto

This has been a book that's been in the back of my mind as a "must read" for a long time.  It combines that most fascinating (to me) of components of crime fiction - a mystery and an insight into life and the thinking of another culture - one that's totally different to my own.  Whilst a...Read more

Poison at Penshaw Hall, G.B. Ralph

The 2nd in the Milverton Mysteries featuring Addison Harper, this is a series that's on the cosier, English Village styled end of the mystery scale. Although that setting is delivered with a dry, very wry tone, and a great sense of petty politics in a pretty village. 

It's...Read more

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Poison Bay, Belinda Pollard

Set in New Zealand, written by an Australian author, POISON BAY by Belinda Pollard is one of those novels that you just can’t help but wonder what tourism authorities reaction would be...

Located in one of New Zealand’s most rugged and beautiful locations - Fiordland - the...Read more

Poison Door, Steve Malley

Not being at all adverse to a big suspenseful thriller I was more than pleased to get my hands on a copy of NZ author Steve Malley's book POISON DOOR.

Even more pleased that I didn't dither around like I'm wont to do and sat down and read it.  There's an awful lot to like about...Read more

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Poker Chips and Poison, Rodney Strong

POKER CHIPS AND POISON is the first novel in what's intended to be a series set around 97-year-old Alice Atkinson, resident of Silvermoon Retirement Village, and cunning sleuth. Anybody who has read this author's Hitchhiker series may remember a cameo from Alice, but in this story she's...Read more

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Police at the Station and They Don't Look Friendly

Belfast 1988: A man is found dead, killed with a bolt from a crossbow in front of his house. This is no hunting accident. But uncovering who is responsible for the murder will take Detective Sean Duffy down his most dangerous road yet, a road that leads to a lonely clearing on a high bog...Read more

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6
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The Pool, Hannah Tunnicliffe

The promotional material pushes the connection, and it's hard not to get a vibe of THE SLAP from the blurb of this one  - young families, a tragedy at a bbq that implodes relationships, crumbles friendships and all, but fear not if you're feeling like this is another commentary on parenting...Read more

Pop Goes the Weasel, M.J. Arlidge

The second novel in the DI Helen Grace series POP GOES THE WEASEL returns to Grace's life in the aftermath of her sister's death, and that of a much loved colleague in the first book EENY MEENY. Because the events in that first novel were so fundamental to everything that Grace is and how...Read more

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The Port Fairy Murders, Robert Gott

The first book, THE HOLIDAY MURDERS marked a change in series, but not style, for author Robert Gott. Much of this author's crime fiction writing has concentrated on historical time periods, in particular around the second world war.

This reader was very impressed with the...Read more

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The Preacher, Camilla Läckberg

Second book in the Erica Falck and Patrik Hedström series, THE PREACHER continues the personal story of these two characters, whilst taking the reader into another past / present scenario. I think I'm going to have to start a count of this sort of storyline as it seems to be cropping up all...Read more

Precious You, Helen Monks Takhar

Rocketing towards certain destruction, Katherine and Lily are two women that have little in common and nothing that they are willing to share.  Precious You examines the bitter and bloody path of female conflict that is born in the workplace but inevitably extends far beyond into the outer...Read more

The Precipice, Virginia Duigan

I suppose finding some sort of "pattern" in what you're reading, when you read a lot of books, is inevitable, but it always intrigues when I find that sort of co-incidence showing up.  At the moment it's well-written unsympathetic, often off-putting characterisations.  THE PRECIPICE has...Read more

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