Newtown Review of Books recently posted their yearly reader's favourites from 2025, and I was particularly pleased to see Fiona Hardy's Unbury the Dead review in the list.
Which is the perfect excuse to remind everyone that the second book in the series - Old Games is due out late February. Add it to your Mt TBR piles.
In the last few days news of the death of Jean Bedford, after a long illness, has been announced. As a joint founder of Newtown Review of Books, many people will have read her work, or been assisted by her editing skills, over the life of that site, as well as during her time as a much admired author, teacher, lecturer and editor. A wonderful and illuminating tribute has now been posted:
A list of her works can be found here: ... Read Update
Starting out as I hopefully now mean to go on, a quick mention of my current read - Quintus Huntley: Botany by Royce Leville
When his sole poetry collection is found in the case of a gruesomely murdered violinist, the police think Huntley did it. But he's innocent, and the best way to prove it is to find the killer himself.
Variously assisted by Detective Everest, PR writer Aphra Massey and octogenarian computer hacker Henrikson, Huntley tries to solve a
... Read Update
Eighth Status Report on the Project 'KEEP THE READING QUEUE UNDER CONTROL', with this month the subtitle of What Happens When You Can't Even Remember to do a Plan....
As always - the last fortnight entries and The Next Up Reading List in full.
2025 SHORTLIST FOR THE DANGER AWARDS REVEALED
MEDIA RELEASE
Every year the Danger Awards honour the best stories about crime and justice that champion an Australian setting. With a strong sense of time and place at their heart, it is no surprise that the judge’s selection this year make up the best of Australian crime. Twenty shortlisted titles were chosen across three categories – Debut Crime Fiction, Crime Fiction and Crime Non-Fiction – showcasing an explosion of talent and intelligent writing that kept the true surprises ... Read Update
Seventh Status Report on the Project 'KEEP THE READING QUEUE UNDER CONTROL', with this month the subtitle of A Month in Which Some Things Went to Plan.
As always - the last fortnight entries and The Next Up Reading List in full.
Sixth Status Report on the Project 'KEEP THE READING QUEUE UNDER CONTROL', with this month the subtitle of, The Wheels are Being Realigned.
As always - the last fortnight entries and The Next Up Reading List in full.
Fifth Status Report on the Project 'KEEP THE READING QUEUE UNDER CONTROL', with this month the subtitle of, The Wheels Have Fallen Off.
As always - the last fortnight entries and The Next Up Reading List in full.
Soho Crime's weekend newsletter shared the sad news that yet another great crime writer has died - this time the English writer Peter Lovesey
Their tribute does it best: https://mailchi.mp/sohopress/remembering-peter-lovesey
But the line:
In addition to the scope of his unparalleled crime fiction career, Peter Lovesey will be remembered by his many grieving friends as the paragon of decency, compassion, loyalty, self-discipline, and pride in good work—in short,
... Read Update
ENTRIES NOW OPEN FOR THE 2025 DANGER AWARDS
BAD Sydney Crime Writers Festival is pleased to announce that entries for the 2025 Danger Awards are now open.
Now in their eighth year, the Danger Awards continue to honour books featuring Australia as a setting for stories about crime and justice. At BAD Sydney Crime Writers Festival in September 2025 ... Read Update
Book lovers around the world are coming together from April 21-27 for the Global Book Crawl, and of course Australia’s local bookshops are in on the action! The Global Book Crawl is a worldwide celebration of local bookshops and those who love them. There’ll be seven different Aussie Book Crawls taking place, alongside crawls in Firenze, Nairobi, Kuala Lumpur, Malaga, Basel, Brooklyn NYC and many more (click ... Read Update
Vale to the wonderful, funny and very clever Kerry Greenwood.
Another way too young. Thoughts with David and the rest of her family, friends and cats.
Yesterday Andrew Nette, on BlueSky, posted a link out about the death of the Irish Author Ken Bruen. Only 74 years old, had led a life no two ways about that, and wrote some of the most wonderful, dry, noir styled works I've had the pleasure to read. As Andrew put it in his post "I loved his inspector Brant series, a terrifically lean & nasty series of novels in which it was often difficult to tell the difference between the cops and the criminals." For a start, 74 is too young to die, and for a ... Read Update
Fourth Status Report on the Project 'KEEP THE READING QUEUE UNDER CONTROL'.
As always - the last fortnight entries and The Next Up Reading List in full.
Third Status Report on the Project 'KEEP THE READING QUEUE UNDER CONTROL'.
Second Status Report on the Project 'KEEP THE READING QUEUE UNDER CONTROL'.
Think of this, if you will, as a Status Report on the Project 'KEEP THE READING QUEUE UNDER CONTROL' which is officially now a thing around here. You never know, reporting on it like a project might keep the targets clear, and the deliverables.. err ... delivered.
The reader of these updates might remember I went into Christmas 2024 intending to read as many as possible from a pile of books that I listed in my December 2024 newsletter. Surprisingly given the ... Read Update
All the books and reviews for 2024 are now over from the old site and relaid out. Will be worrying about blog posts / updates later on as they are less important. Now onto 2023....Read Update
Things are progressing in the catch up of books / reviews etc onto this new site. It's taking a while, I'd forgotten just how many reviews / books had been added in the last 18 years.
The plan was to pull in books as new ones from the same author came out. That has "sort of" worked, but I've also been working my way backwards through the most recent reviews posted, and sideways as somebody triggers a memory, or something pops up in a list somewhere.
Basically there is no plan, I'm getting there. Read Update
I realise this is ridiculously, embarrassingly late, but better late than never right. The longlists were announced ages ago, as were the winners so a summary:
Ritual of Fire, DV Bishop (WINNER)
The Caretaker, Gabriel Bergmoser
Pet, Cathering Chidgey
Devil's Breath, Jill Johnson
... Read Update