Sorted on book title (not in series order)
Nailing my colours firmly to the aerial of the ute, I love a book that evokes a place and a people strongly. THE BUILD UP is set in and around Darwin in Australia's Northern Territory. A bit of a frontier town - they have a habit of referring to other states as "the shoe wearing states...Read more
One Thursday afternoon in the seniors' center, a decade-old cold case --their favorite kind-- leads the Thursday Murder Club to a local news legend and a murder with no body and no answers. A new foe they call "Viking", wants Elizabeth to kill former KGB chief Viktor, or he will...Read more
Stage magician William Wilson lives a pretty hand to mouth type of existence as an opening act. In these way past vaudeville days, a stage magician is not really all that in demand. He also doesn't get many gigs at retirement parties for policemen, but Detective Inspector James Montgomery...Read more
The second book in one of my all time favourite series, the Flaxborough Chronicles, BUMP IN THE NIGHT, sees DI Purbright on temporary secondment to Chalmsbury after a series of monuments explode. Things get a lot more serious though when local "identity" Stan Biggadyke is blown up on the...Read more
You could not, ever, accuse Andrea Maria Schenkel of wordiness. Her books are masterpieces of succinct, pointed fiction, leaving a lot to the readers imagination, conclusion or simply confusion. Which is part of what I love about these books - that feeling, when finished reading, that you...Read more
BUNNY is written by S.E. Tolsen, a husband and wife writing team, who won Best Horror Novel of 2023 in the Australian Aurealis Awards, making it to the longlist for the 2024 Ngaio Marsh awards based on it's thriller categorisation.
A combination of a straight up thriller, with...Read more
Second book in the Peter Tanner series, THE BURDEN OF LIES follows on from CYANIDE GAMES, which it might be worth reading first. There's a lot of framework construction in the first book that will help with understanding Tanner, his family, his work life and some of the ways that all...Read more
Neil Cross really knows how to put together a story. More importantly, in BURIAL, his second crime fiction novel, he's absolutely not afraid to write a very morally ambiguous central character.
When Nathan meets up with journalist Bob again at a drug fuelled party at his...Read more
Originally published in the 1940's the Gervase Fen mysteries are one of those rights of passage for crime lovers. Or at least they were in my house as I was growing up. Vintage Books have done us all an enormous favour in turning their attention back to some of the classic books - and...Read more
Partly a story around Iris Foster, partly a story around arson, BURN PATTERNS puts a complicated woman at the heart of a story about complicated offenders. Known as "The Fire Lady" Foster is a psychologist with a messy past that she's tried to put behind her. Until mid consultation with...Read more
Following on from the excellent debut THE FALL BETWEEN, author Darcy Tindale's BURNING MOUNTAIN shows absolutely no sign of the dreaded "second novel syndrome". The action here is as believable, and relevant to the place as in the earlier...Read more
The morning that I went for my drivers licence, I'm not sure who was the most worried. My very patient, very kind driving instructor or me. Because we both knew that when it came to parking, I might as well be driving a block of flats. It didn't matter what that poor man did, there was no...Read more
Set in 1960s small town New Zealand, BUSH SICK LAND is a story that sets itself so firmly in time and place that it's uncomfortable. A time when racism, homophobia and gender stereotypes were not just rife, they kind of felt like they are being celebrated. Back when radio and vinyl records...Read more
I (tried) listening to this much acclaimed Japanese book, which is very much focused on cooking and food, with a sideline inspired by the true story of a convicted con woman and serial killer. An unusual sort of a story, it's all a long slow build up, which hints at, but doesn't necessarily...Read more
THE BUTTERFLY EFFECT appeals - not so much because it's a tight and involving mystery, or that there is a sense of an investigation and a resolution - but because of the characters, and in particular Igi, and in an odd way a dead young woman and a dead father. In the aftermath of her...Read more
BY ANY MEANS is the second book from NZ author Ben Sanders. Sanders is a fan of writers such as Michael Connelly and Lee Child, which I suspect you can probably tell from his style. Rapid fire, with an opening that will really make you sit up and take notice BY ANY MEANS has a number of...Read more
BY DEATH DIVIDED is the 14th book in the Thackeray and Ackroyd series. Laura Ackroyd is a journalist - her partner Michael Thackeray is a DCI. Fitting the double central characters, BY DEATH DIVIDED has two main threads - a missing Asian woman and her husband (which Thackeray is...Read more
In separate parts of England two bodies have been found - both of them horribly mutilated, ritually humiliated... but strangely, it seems, most of the worst of the atrocities are committed after the men were heavily drugged. Aside from the method, which indicates a single killer, there's...Read more
THE CABINETMAKER was offered to me as a review book, no conditions, although it did come with a warning about the inclusion of some strong language. Even allowing for a tendency to think that the pile up of bodies in crime fiction is more discomforting than the occasional burst of swearing...Read more
When your favourite authors start dying even the most reasonable reader should be forgiven for becoming a nervous, obsessed, idiot hoarder of books that can, after all, be re-read should the unthinkable eventuate. Despite an overwhelming desire to continue this hoarding behaviour,...Read more
Jackie and Pete King have lived in Dunmore for years, running one of the two local pubs in the sleepy little town. Money has been tight after the bushfires, and it’s about to get tighter if they can’t find a way to pay their suppliers to keep their business going and keep the bank from...Read more
Before the death of author John Le Carre, I'd already promised myself a re-run through the George Smiley series, for two reasons. I'd listened to AGENT RUNNING IN THE FIELD last year and been absolutely taken with the style of narration from the author himself; then late one night we'd...Read more
Over the summer, along with reviewing new novels, I’m also planning to review some of my favourites starting with John Le Carre’s Call For The Dead. Although Le Carre is arguably the greatest spy novelist of all time his first two novels, Call For The Dead and A Murder...Read more
Marketed under the banner "incredible new literary thriller", CALL ME EVIE is the debut novel of New Zealand born, Melbourne based writer J.P. Pomare.
Opening in a manner guaranteed to make readers feel maximum discomfort, a young woman is in a bathroom, hacking at her long...Read more
With a growing awareness of her isolation and of how complete her removal has been from her old world of the ‘before’, Evie has few tools at hand with which to dig out the truth of what happened back in Australia. All she really knows is what Jim has selectively been telling her. It was...Read more
THE CALL is a debut crime novel from NZ author Gavin Strawhan and I checked that statement more than a few times whilst reading. It won the Allen & Unwin Fiction Prize in 2023, I did not need to check that. THE CALL is such a strong debut it's hard to know where to start, but let's echo...Read more
One of the most exciting things about a new book from Karin Fossum is exactly where she's going to take the reader this time. The scenarios, the crimes, the individuals that Fossum incorporates in her books are always very thought provoking, and THE CALLER was certainly no different....Read more
THE CALLING is one of those books. One of those books that I found sometimes utterly compelling; was bored witless in some passages; laughed out loud in others; found myself heartily confused about some of the procedural elements; and was slightly repelled by some parts.
It is...Read more
The first line of the blurb for THE CAMPERS describes it as "An engrossing and provocative exploration of privilege, hypocrisy and justice... " which is about as perfect a description as you'd ever want. This is discomforting, confusing, and confronting reading, a story that is...Read more
Commencing a blurb with a question implies that somewhere along the line the book will provide an answer. In the case of CAN YOU KEEP A SECRET? "Why do some people decide to get married when everyone around them would seem to agree that marriage, at least for the two people in question is a...Read more