Gunnawah, Ronni Salt
Ronni Salt’s debut is historical crime fiction at its best, with a strong sense of place and time and wonderful characters at its core. Full review at Newtown Review of Books...Read more
Southern Aurora, Mark Brandi
Evoking a particularly poignant sense of the time period in which it is set, SOUTHERN AURORA is yet another pitch perfect book from Mark Brandi exploring intergenerational damage, domestic violence, small town and rural life and young boy's experiences - good and bad.
Raw,...Read more
The Fall Between, Darcy Tindale
THE FALL BETWEEN is the debut novel from Darcy Tindale, set in the Muswellbrook area, located in the NSW Upper Hunter Valley. The story features Detective Rebecca Giles, who, after some time in the police force, has returned to her home town in no small part because her father, an ex-cop...Read more
Bone Lands, Pip Fioretti
In 1911, Augustus (Gus) Hawkins is a mounted trooper in rural New South Wales. A veteran of the Boer war he's a complex man with a severe case of PTSD and a bad dose of long-standing longing for Flora Kirkbride, eldest of four children of a local "landed gentry" family. Until the night he...Read more
Dirt Town, Hayley Scrivenor
An outstanding debut novel back in 2022 (good grief has it really taken this long to post this ...), it's very very hard to look past an Australian rural noir novel called DIRT TOWN. Sitting as I am at the moment in the middle of an Australian rural summer that's mostly putting up dust...Read more
Stone Town, Margaret Hickey
STONE TOWN by Margaret Hickey follows the story of the central character introduced in her (very good) debut novel CUTTERS END. Senior Sergeant Mark Ariti's moved from the South Australian outback back to his home town of Booralama. Since the death of his mother, he's living on his own in...Read more
Cutters End, Margaret Hickey
First off, let me break all the "rules" of reviewing and say from the outset that I really enjoyed CUTTERS END.
Set in the South Australian outback town of Cutters End, this is a two timeline mystery, with the story harking back to the death of Michael Denby in the scrub off...Read more
Bitter Wash Road, Garry Disher
Bitter Wash Road is the latest police procedural from Garry Disher. Introducing a new protagonist, and set in the isolated South Australian wheatbelt, this is a book that delves deep into corruption, influence and power. Full review at ...Read more