THE SLOW ROLL is New Zealand based author Simon Lendrum's debut novel, which is worth mentioning because readers could be mistaken for thinking this is one of many. Engrossing, with a well constructed plot, a very engaging couple of central characters, and a dry, almost melancholic style,...Read more
Monday Woolridge is a fighter with a face covered in scars and life full of debt.
Her Avondale flat has no furniture, her father’s dead, her catatonic mother’s in an expensive nursing home and her kickboxing gym is going to Thailand.
Monday's shitty bartending job pays...Read more
Emily, eight months pregnant, and her partner Cam return to Tranquil Bay, a small seaside town in New Zealand, to attend her dad’s 60th birthday bash. She hasn’t been back home since the tragic death of her younger sister Sarah ten years earlier.
The town and old friends she’s...Read more
A dementia diagnosis reveals clues to a decades-old mystery in this new novel from the author of The Secrets of Strangers – Charity Norman’s third to be shortlisted for NZ’s Ngaio Marsh Awards.
Full Review at: ...Read more
Retired Detective Inspector Ann Grieves, now private investigator, probes the dark secrets of Arcadia, a remote religious sect in West Auckland where abuse of adults and children is rife. After blowing the whistle on their narcissistic leader, a young dairy foreman is found dead. Ann and...Read more
Nothing in Stan Andino's unremarkable life could prepare him for the day he discovers his wife in the living room, naked except for a black apron, bleaching out a stain in the carpet that only she can see.
A CT scan one week later explains the seemingly inexplicable; Carmen...Read more
Masterton isn’t a big town. The community’s tight, if not always harmonious. So when a child goes missing it’s a big deal for everyone. And when a second kid disappears, the whole town’s holding their own children that little bit tighter.
Lorraine doesn’t have kids, but she has...Read more
A finalist in the Ngaio Awards for Best First Crime Novel, Paper Cage is the story of a divided community and a string of missing children. Full Review at Newtown Review...Read more
Dead Man’s Pose is a tension-reliever in yoga. Not this time!
The relaxation goes further than expected. One of Elaina Williams’s yoga students dies in her class. Was the victim helped into Dead Man’s Pose? Behind the scenes, there’s a coverup threatening to unravel Elaina’s...Read more
They never found Leah Parata. Not a boot, not a backpack, not a turquoise beanie. After she left me that day, she vanished off the face of the earth.
A close-knit community is ripped apart by disturbing revelations that cast new light on a young woman's disappearance twenty-five...Read more
In 1987, leather-clad tourist Blanca Nul goes missing in small-town New Zealand. Local reporter Ray Moody, washed-up and over-imbibing, gets a scoop the foreigner modelled for a pornographic magazine. He chases the story but crashes his car and loses his job.
A year to the day...Read more
At the end of Neands, in a world that has turned against them, Charlie, Pru, and Ivy have found refuge but they are desperate for answers. As they set out to find out what happened to Charlie’s mother and their foster parents, Alan and Ngaire, Em and her brother Miro are risking their lives...Read more
1982, New Zealand. Sean McBride, an unlicensed private investigator living under a false identity, forms an unlikely alliance with small town lawyer Jim Mansell and his unconventional secretary Kelly.
Fighting against dirty tricks from Northland rugby fields to dusty courtrooms...Read more