Nat now lives a picture perfect life - an artist, an instagram influencer, she has a husband, a baby and staff. She's also back living in the same place she grew up, friends with some of the girls at school who bullied and tormented her when they were younger, seemingly living the perfect...Read more
The second George Manolis novel sees him flying from Australia to Greece on an extended holiday after a turbulent time. Recently divorced, mourning the death of his much loved father, Manolis returns to the place of his father's birth - the Prespes region which straddles the borders of...Read more
The second fiction book from New Zealand writer, Gigi Fenster, A GOOD WINTER is a story of a group of women, after Lara moves to the city to be near her widowed, pregnant daughter. Sophie really starts to struggle after Michael is born, her grief compounded by post-natal depression. The...Read more
This audio book was part of my revisit of the entire Parlabane series so I was cheating a bit, having already done "all the emotions" over the opening line of the blurb.
I do get the idea of telegraphing the end of Jack and the whole Parlabane series was going to grab some...Read more
THE SIGNATORY is a thriller set in and around an Australian advertising agency, leaving this reviewer wondering if there's an argument that crime fiction set in the corporate / business world is under-represented. On the face of it, perhaps an unlikely setting, but then again, there are...Read more
Familial love, tension, friendship and interconnections are all part of Laurence Fearnley's novel WINTER TIME, set in New Zealand's MacKenzie Basin, a location which absolutely stars in this story. A place in which breath frosts, mists are all encompassing, peaks are starkly white, snow...Read more
ECHO LAKE is the debut thriller from screenwriter, producer and author Joan Sauers. Set in the sleepy, scenic vista of the Southern Highlands of New South Wales, Rose McHugh has just moved to the area, as a result of a tumultuous divorce. This is an area she loved to visit when younger, and...Read more
I was so looking forward to THE YEAR OF THE LOCUST, and yet, somehow, it's arrival in my ebook queue came as a hell of a surprise. So, needless to say, everything else got swept aside and I settled in for what I hoped would be some days of engaging espionage thriller reading.
...Read more
The author of THE CONCIERGE, Abby Corson, has been a luxury travel and lifestyle writer for over 10 years, and it shows in the way that she's able to depict a luxury hotel in the English countryside, with it's own concierge, Henry Harrow, the narrator of this, her first novel.
...Read more
In Aoife Clifford’s third novel, the death of a local celebrity brings two old schoolmates together to answer some troubling questions. Full Review at: Newtown Review of BooksRead more
BLACK WIDOW is the 7th Jack Parlabane story, which I did read before WANT YOU GONE, but the review is going up out of order, just because (well actually I was working my way through a list from the bottom up so that's worked well....)
Anyway, this book is the story of surgeon...Read more
The 4th novel in the Reggie da Costa series, LIES AND DECEPTION is a nicely twisty tale of the just desserts served up to a serial conman and his accomplices by a determined crime reporter and his ... accomplices.
If you're new to this lovely series, set in the early 1920's in...Read more
Beneath the sheen of its orderly streets and obedient populace, all is not well in the port city of Kobe. Business is as brisk as the Haru-ichiban spring breeze for Mami Suzuki, hotel clerk by day, private investigator by night.
Who's stealing from Japan's biggest pearl trader?...Read more
UNBLESSED is the latest in the Jane Halifax series of books, featuring the TV series character of the same name. A forensic psychologist, Halifax has worked with all sorts of criminal types - from serial to opportunistic killers, and in the last book, herself, when she suffers from sudden...Read more
The follow on from FOR REASONS OF THEIR OWN, GLASGOW SMILE is set (the title relates to something specific in the surroundings), in Melbourne, where the discovery of a woman's body stabbed and strangled late at night in the graffitied and dark tangled laneways of the innercity sets off a...Read more
For somebody who claims to prefer the darker end of the Crime Fiction spectrum, I've been thoroughly enjoying some cosies recently. Although I did originally try to "read" this one via the audio book, but that didn't work, so I switched to the printed form and found myself happily enjoying...Read more
BRONTE NEEDS A PLACE TO LIE LOW.
She posted a drunken rant that went horrifically viral. Now – jobless, friendless and broke – she’s forced to volunteer as a carer on an isolated rural property. She won’t be paid for looking after dementia sufferer Nell, but at least she’ll...Read more
When three 16 year old boys on a school hiking trip run into perilous surf, the only witness is Grace Disher, the teacher in charge of the trip, who reluctantly defers to the first rule of rescue: don't create another casualty and stands helplessly by as the boys disappear.
...Read more
First in the series "The Notting Hill Mysteries" originally published in 1992, An Uncommon Murder introduces Alex Tanner is another entrant in a long tradition of accidental investigators, although working, as she does, as a freelance researcher - this time for a possible magazine article...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
THE BLACK PATH is the sort of book that you need to read with your preconceptions and expectations firmly locked in a drawer. Having not read the second book in the series yet, I know something happened to Rebecka in that book, but the details aren't important to understanding, from the...Read more
Subtitled "The True Story of Postcard Bandit Brenden Abbott", AUSTRALIAN OUTLAW is the authorised biography of Abbott, once a notorious Australian criminal, although, as it turns out from this book, a bit of a mythological figure in some ways.
Abbott actually contributed to the...Read more
Yes, yes, I know. What am I doing reading a book like THE AFFAIR OF THE BLOODSTAINED EGG COSY. In my defence I used to be quite a SPLASHER (4MA speak for somebody who reads a wide range of crime book "styles") although in recent years I will admit I've moved more and more to the dark side...Read more
Not sure what's weirder, talking to fictional characters, or the feeling that you actually know those fictional characters... Either way, you have to think it's quite a feat for a writer to get you to the stage where you're more than happy to regard her characters as real people. MILES OFF...Read more
Living on the edge of the Pyrenees (the ones in Victoria, Australia), surrounded as we are by wineries and winemakers, it's was a rather interesting experience to find myself reading TREACHERY IN BORDEAUX which is steeped in wine-making tradition, methodology, and a dash of intrigue....Read more
The second in a series set in London and a debut legal thriller show some of the exciting variety of Australian crime fiction on offer. Review at: ...Read more
The third Catherine Berlin novel from Annie Hauxwell takes the concept of moving a character out of their comfort zone that bit further. Berlin is one of those unrepentant flawed types. A heroin addict she's prepared to manage the addiction with prescription medications, but she's really...Read more
The author of COLD DECEPTION has had many years experience in the Criminal Justice system, and that knowledge shines through in this debut crime fiction offering.
Julia Taylor's release from prison, her struggles to re-establish life and normality, and the way that she balances...Read more
Honkaku is a subgenre of Japanese Crime Fiction that came into being sometime in the early 1920's. The original definition was "a detective story that mainly focuses on the process of a criminal investigation and values the entertainment derived from pure logical reasoning". The term was...Read more
The second in the Harry Belltree trilogy, events in ASH ISLAND follow closely on from CRUCIFIXION CREEK. Short-listed for the 2015 Ned Kelly Awards CRUCIFIXION CREEK set up a different character for Maitland to work with in Australian, Indigenous Detective Harry Belltree. There is still,...Read more