Sorted on book title (not in series order)
Edwina Biggs has lead a quiet life, battling to make ends meet, working a mundane job with antisocial hours, living a restrained life in a contained neighbourhood. Things were changing at last though as she'd recently swapped the big family home for a small cottage on Edmund Street, learnt...Read more
Re-reading any of Pat Flower's excellent books is always a very bittersweet experience. Reading SHADOW SHOW even more so, as my edition was published after Flower died, from the effects of pentobarbitone poisoning, taken intentionally, in September 1977.
Patricia Mary Bryson...Read more
SHADOW SISTER is the second book translated into English from Dutch author Simone van der Vlugt. Both standalones, this one is the story of twins Lydia and Elisa, as the blurb puts it - identical in appearance, different in every other way.
Starting out on a particularly...Read more
If you're going to be a business lawyer dragged into criminal matters by an old school friend who gets himself into a heap of trouble, then the mean streets you walk somehow seem considerably more exotic when they are the laneways, byways and desert tracks of Gibraltar and Tangiers....Read more
I am all over the place with this series, and I don't think that's helping my enjoyment of these books one little bit. Nor, mind you, is the line blazoned all over the front cover 'Glasgow's Answer to Ian Rankin'.... sorry, but that's setting the bar just a tad on the high side isn't it...Read more
New Zealand's decision to declare itself nuclear-free in 1987 created quite a stir at the time, so it makes considerable sense that an autocratic Prime Minister approving a US Navel facility in the middle of Wellington harbour (and therefore allowing the possibility of nuclear powered...Read more
Magical realism in a disturbing political thriller, told in a confessional first person voice, SHAKTI is not the sort of novel that you'd normally expect to show up in the list for a crime fiction award, but if the Ngaio Marsh Award has shown me anything over recent years it's to expect the...Read more
Stuart Black, ad exec turned author has his first book out - SHALLOW WATER - in September 2009, published by Sid Harta Publishers.
It is the story of a down to earth Australian builder and would be musician Brad West, who, by marrying the beautiful Jemma Beckford, gets a wife...Read more
Monica, is a successful, well regarded surgeon and physician who is ashamed of something in her past. She can't develop any meaningful relationships with anyone and pushes anyone who gets close quickly away.
Maj-Britt, hiding from the world behind an endless supply of food,...Read more
Shark Bait is the 3rd Syd Fish book (and sadly the last), which has been sitting in my shelves for years now, being carefully rationed because there are so few of them.
Syd Fish is an ex-political minder, turned Private Investigator - there is a touch of the Murray Whelan's...Read more
SHARKS WITH LIPSTICK is a satirical romantic mystery written by Hinemura Ellison and Ted Hughes. Satirical it definitely is, as you'll get from the blurb - with the concept being that there's a Big Super Ministry as part of the government, where it seems employees spend more time playing...Read more
Tara Sharp is a newish entrant in the Australian amateur investigator / mad cap girl / chick lit style of crime fiction. With the added extra of a bit of paranormal ability, as in aura reading.
There's been a lot of entrants in this sort of slightly out of control,...Read more
Here's the thing. You hoard a book because it's a favourite series, and there's no sign of the next one yet. But then there are noises about the next one, but that's not out for ages, but you can't wait any longer so you read the one you've had tucked away. Then you've not got that little...Read more
SHATTER is the much anticipated 4th book in an ongoing series by this author. All of these books are strong psychological thrillers, with good plots peopled with some believable characters. Each book switches the central protagonist around an expanding character group - sometimes with the...Read more
Syd Fish is a failed journalist, sacked political minder and start up private investigator on the "mean" streets of Sydney.
Shaved Fish is a series of short stories which introduce the reader to the laconic, bumbling, accidental PI.
There's a good touch of humour...Read more
SHE BE DAMNED is the opening salvo in an new series set in London in the 1860's featuring courtesan and professional detective Heloise Chancey. If this opening is anything to go by then this will be a fun, engaging and very lively group of novels.
Given this is the debut, there...Read more
This year I promised myself a read through of the entire Pushkin Vertigo series, starting out with SHE WHO WAS NO MORE by Pierre Boileau and Pierre Ayraud (aka Thomas Narcejac), originally published in 1952. Collaborating as they did on mainly police stories I found the idea that Boilea was...Read more
Every now and then we meet a literary villain who is both villain and victim. Meet Bella, a young woman who does not take kindly to being sidelined or left behind. You might recognize her. Someone who once worked in your office. Someone who once dated one of your friends. Someone you’d...Read more
Sheerwater is an emotionally charged work of both hope and despair, beginnings and endings. Calling this book a thriller won’t be doing it a disservice, but it may give the expectation to the reader that they are about to dive into a work of suspense with no lingering take-homes to mull...Read more
In essence a chase novel, Shepherd is also a confidently pitched work about something just a little different. There’s not a lot written that is set in this time, being the settler years of Australia, so that alone is something of a literary hook and grab for a young reader to pick up this...Read more
Have had this one in the reading queues for quite a while now, so when an audio version of it appeared, read by New Zealander, Eva Seymour, I jumped at it. There's nothing like hearing the Māori language pronounced the way it should be.
A dystopian eco-thriller, SHE'S A KILLER...Read more
“I step over the threshold. The day is drawing in and the room is shadowy, so it’s not until Mac snaps on the light that I see it. I almost trip over a coffee table in my rush to get to the fireplace or, more specifically, the painting hanging over the marble mantelpiece....Read more
The third book in the Alex Clayton Art Mystery series sees a shift of setting to the Western District of Victoria and one of those big pastoral leases that were such a part of the landscape down there. The title of the novel "The Shifting Landscape" is quite cleverly pitched referring as it...Read more
The second book in the historical series featuring Sergeant Akai Singh, A SHIPWRECK IN FIJI follows on from A DISAPPEARANCE IN FIJI. This series makes for particularly interesting reading if you're aware of the motivation behind the books, which...Read more
I've been a big fan of the Stella Hardy series (GOOD MONEY, TOO EASY and now SHOOT THROUGH), and I will admit that the setting of this one appealed enormously - what with Stella returning to the...Read more
A most unexpected combination of noir and comic/cartoonish stylings, SHOOTING MESSENGERS is the opening salvo in a series tagged as Quake City Investigations. Launching pretty well straight into the action, readers are introduced to two main investigating characters - PI Danny Ashford and...Read more
In May 2019 Text Publishing announced their Text Classics version of Peter Temple's SHOOTING STAR, two decades on from the original release date.
It's well worth getting hold of a copy of this edition for Adrian McKinty's introduction alone, as it gives real insight into the...Read more
Frank Calder is a bit of a maverick. Ex-cop / ex-soldier - current day "mediator". He's the sort of bloke that gets called in to sticky situations where unusual solutions are required. He's worked for the Carsons before. When a crazed gunman took store staff hostage, Frank wandered into...Read more
SHORE LEAVE is the fourth novel in the Frank Swann series. Frank's an ex-cop, now private investigator in 1970's / 80's Perth and Fremantle. In this outing it's 1989 and the Yanks are in town, and with the arrival of a huge US nuclear-powered aircraft carrier, there are lots of sailors on...Read more
The second of the Jennifer Shot series I've read, SHOT THROUGH THE HEART is Australian crime fiction of the humorous, slightly dippy female protagonist kind. The sort of girl (and that's appropriate in this case) that lives a quirky alternative lifestyle (this time in an old multi-storied...Read more