Sorted on book title (not in series order)
TWO HOURS TO VANISH
Ten people have been carefully selected to Beta test a ground-breaking piece of spyware. Pioneered by tech-wunderkind Cy Baxter, FUSION can track anyone wherever they are on earth. But does it work?
ONE CHANCE TO ESCAPE
Each participant is...Read more
Technology based thrillers like GOING ZERO can, sometimes, make this reader wary. Very wary, as the "tech" is often so far off course it endangers teeth and the book's ability to stay in one piece. Not so in GOING ZERO - the tech here might be a tad ropey in places, but the application was...Read more
Becky thought she'd left Zoe and that summer far behind.
Set in 1995 against the backdrop of Auckland's burgeoning party scene, Golden Days is the story of an intense late-teens friendship between bookish Becky Chalke and star-dusted Zoe Golden, and what happens after one...Read more
A new day has dawned, and Little Crick is out for revenge. Having discovered the sinister truth of his truelove’s demise, he is hell-bent on punishing those he holds responsible. Yet he is about to discover that the plot goes deeper and involves more players than he at first ...Read more
When DS Theo Fleming is called back from leave to attend a crime scene, he has reservations. The victim is a geologist who had been researching long-disused copper mines on land whose title is disputed by local Māori. Given the complexity of tribal politics and distrust of the police, Theo'...Read more
As the third wave of the virus hits, all inhabitants of Melbourne are given until 8pm to get to their homes. Wherever they are when the curfew hits, they must live for four weeks and stay within a 5km radius. When Lou’s son Samuel doesn’t arrive home by nightfall she begins to panic....Read more
If you were a resident of Melbourne (or any larger city I suppose), the announcement of one of the many COVID lockdowns was a sudden jolt to the nervous system.
What JP Pomare has done, in HOME BEFORE NIGHT, is add an extra layer of complexity when Lou realises her son Samuel...Read more
Katipo Joe: Wolf’s Lair is the harrowing and thrilling story of Joseph St George (codename: Katipo) in Germany during World War II.
On the eve of the Nazi invasion of the Soviet Union, Adolf Hitler is preparing to move from Bavaria to the ‘Wolf’s Lair’, his top secret...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
MAMI SUZUKI: PRIVATE EYE is a debut series of linked short stories by NZ born, Japan resident author, Simon Rowe. Mami Suzuki is a hotel clerk, and a part-time private investigator, running her slowly building sideline around the day job, and her mother and young daughter at home. Based in...Read more
This is a tricky one to review. On the one hand I really like this character, and the series has covered some interesting aspects of policing. On the other hand they come with enormous info dumps, none more obvious than the aspects of how and what happens on surveillance jobs in MAN. MADE....Read more
Man. Made. is the fifth book in a crime thriller series which features Dan Calder. Calder is an ex-cop who specialised in covert surveillance and undercover operations during his career in the UK Police. Dan's very unique set of skills have enabled him to investigate crimes and criminals in...Read more
Born in the middle of Australia’s biggest-ever earthquake, Miracle is fourteen when her world crumbles. Thanks to her dad’s new job at Compassionate Cremations — which falls under suspicion for Boorunga’s spate of sudden deaths — the entire town turns against their family. Miracle is...Read more
Being a 14 year old girl is never an easy undertaking, but living in a dying town, in a family beset with problems makes Miracle's life that bit more complicated.
She's known as Miracle because she was born in the middle of Australia's biggest-ever earthquake. The same quake...Read more
An imposition. An insult. And a dead poet.
When the Literary and Historical Society decide to hold their end of year event at Wingate Hall, it's the last thing Emma needs.
With her husband missing in action and the weather worsening, she's forced...Read more
The first book in the Series - Murder By Truth - The story of why I died
Paul Nichols was not your average family man. Born in New Zealand, he loved outdoor life, climbing mountains, trekking, camping, and survival. Trained by the Army and SAS he later joined special operations...Read more
How do you move forward if you don’t know where you started?
Russia 1996
11-year-old Nikolai and his 9-year-old sister, Anna, have lived most of their lives in an orphanage, built inside a 300-year-old former monastery. Their city has changed its name from...Read more
Eighteen-year-old Witi’s father is listed as having abandoned his family and that’s just how Witi sees it. But when he is on his surfboard, feeling the surge of the sea, he somehow feels close to him. He also knows his rock-star father was diagnosed as schizophrenic, and lately Witi has...Read more
Like every other girl in her class, twelve-year-old Justine is drawn to her glamorous, charismatic new teacher, and longs to be her pet. However, when a thief begins to target the school, Justine’s sense that something isn't quite right grows ever stronger. With each twist of the plot, this...Read more
Unable to put down Catherine Chidgey's PET, I struggled to sleep last night as I thought long and hard about the "conventions" of society. If you're of a similar age to this reviewer, you'll have probably lived through the experience of the manic house clean, the wearing of "the good...Read more
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After committing an impromptu murder, Paul Barker finds himself trapped in a London apartment house.
Paul meets residents, Mayar and Kim, both of whom have dangerous secrets of their own.
While Paul contrives to conceal the crime and make good his escape, the...Read more
Addison Harper is back, and with another dead body at his feet. Only this time, the entire town saw it happen.
Milverton is in the running for the Terrific Town Award, so a dramatic death at the opening ceremony is far from ideal. Addison had only been lending...Read more
Seeing something you shouldn't have makes life on the margins a whole lot scarier.
Ranger Cal Nyx works alone in the vast NSW bushland reserves but is pulled away from the quiet and solitude by a coded message that only one other person could understand.
Dif, the...Read more
Florence. Summer, 1538.
A night patrol finds a rich merchant hanged and set ablaze in the city’s main piazza. More than mere murder, this killing is intended to put the fear of God into Florence. Forty years earlier on this date, puritanical monk Girolamo...Read more
Third in the Cesare Aldo series from D.V. Bishop, RITUAL OF FIRE is set in a time of change for Aldo, his colleagues and his personal life. He's been sent to the Tuscan countryside, hunting thieves and fugitives whilst Florence battles a heatwave, drought and what turns out to be a series...Read more
Nick Greene flees the life he’s known in exchange for peace in his quaint town’s rugged forest park, but when a curious fisherman foils his tranquillity, Nick’s missing persons case turns into a manhunt.
Heading to the neighbouring city of Abercrombie, Nick finds refuge in a...Read more
Imogen Maguire is bewildered when in 2018 she is accosted in a Melbourne Street by a mysterious stranger who says her grandfather in New Zealand needs her help. But her grandfather is dead, isn’t he? A former journalist, Imogen decides to investigate and travels to Taranaki where she finds...Read more
Bridget Crawford is in a bind. The bank’s threatened to foreclose on her farm, her ex-husband’s returned to town, and someone’s stolen her cattle.
Veterinarian Hugh Jacobs is also in a bind. Tui Dancer, a horse in his care, has suddenly lost his winning form, his affair with...Read more
Poor Little Crick, he is a penniless orphan cast upon the cruel world of 19th Century Kirkshire, with the face – no less – of a pretty girl. Yet he is cunning, he has a fire in his belly, and he has the wiles to become anyone he a swooning lady in a drawing room, a cheeky harlot in a...Read more
Four friends.
One tragic death.
20 years of secrets and lies.
One wintery night, when they are young, Anna and her three friends Rudy, Seth, and Dougal are involved in an accident in...Read more