AustCrime Online
AustCrime Online
- A Beautiful Place to Die
- A festering resentment by a spurned husband turns into the tragic drowning of three children.
- A violent stabbing in a mother's past, and she grows up to murder her four babies.
- Two sons inexplicably killer their mothers.
- Spouses turn to hitmen to solve their domestic problems.
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A festering resentment by a spurned husband turns into the tragic downing of four children.
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A violent stabbing in a mother’s past, and she grows up to murder her four babies.
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Two sons inexplicably kill their mothers.
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A de facto husband remorselessly beats a five-year-old until the child’s traumatised body gives out.
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Spouses turn to hitmen to solve their domestic problems.
Readers of this site are lucky (lucky lucky lucky), oh so lucky to be offered the chance to win a copy of the first two books in the comic Alby Murdoch series by local author Geoffrey McGeachin. For more:
Win Copies of D-E-D Dead! and Sensitive New Age Spy
Entries are open to all geographical locations and you just never know, Geoff could possibly be prevailed upon to inscribe them with a personalised message.
This is an unusual (and from the first few pages I've read), rather funny memoir written by Judith Fordham. The "About the Author" page is fascinating enough to start off with:
"Judith Fordham commenced her career in science. She is a workaholic who later studied law as a single parent, then founded and ran her own law firm for far too long. She became a barrister then discovered the error of her ways, and is now an associate professor at Murdoch University running two postgraduate courses, Forensic Science (Courtroom Practice) for lawyers and a Certificate course in Criminal Investigations (Commercial Crime) for Police."
From the book blurb:
Judith Fordham has worn zebra print shoes into a courtroom, represented transsexuals, bikies, alleged murders and rapists, and raised four children on her own. Life, Law and Not Enough Shoes is her story, from her early life struggling on welfare to becoming a top barrister and Associate Professor of Forensics.
Opening Lines:
I used to jam a pillow under my bedroom door to try to stop the rats from getting in and biting my toes. They could reach my toes because I slept on a mattress on the floor.
Cover Image
Publisher
Barrington Stoke
Copyright
2008
ISBN
9781842995297
No of Pages
114
Price
Book Synopsis
Stuart MacBride is a relative newcomer to the crime fiction scene. His first novel, COLD GRANITE, featuring DI Logan Macrae, burst onto the scene to much acclaim in 2006. Since then there have been four other Logan Macrae novels, with a sixth in the pipeline.
SAWBONES is a different kettle of fish. It is set in the USA for a start and is a road trip no one would ever want to undertake. There are three gangsters in a car, a teenage boy who has recently had his “frank and beans” cut off and a dead FBI agent in the boot. They are on the trail of a serial killer who kidnaps young blonde women and cuts off their limbs while they are still alive. This time the killer has picked the wrong victim. He has taken Laura, the sixteen year old daughter of a New York crime boss.
Police throughout the country are making enquiries, but the gang boss doesn’t trust them. His minions are making their own. Their interviewing techniques aren’t what you’d call subtle. After being questioned by this lot, a witness is just relieved to still be alive, let alone still have all their original body parts.
Book Review
SAWBONES is very violent and definitely NOT for readers of cosies. It could very easily be very grim indeed, but underlying all this blood and gore lurks MacBride’s humour. And that is the attraction for me. While one of the more psychotic members of the gang is wreaking havoc on the most innocent of bystanders, the narrator of the story (another member of the gang ) is standing back admonishing “never poke a bear”. More a novella than a novel ,SAWBONES is just 114 pages long. But those pages are action-packed with never a dull moment. If you think you can handle the violence, then give SAWBONES a try. I loved it.
Cover Image
Publisher
Pan Macmillan
Copyright
2008
ISBN
: 9781405038997
No of Pages
287
Price
$32.99
Book Synopsis
Aaah, America. Land of the free, home of the.....free-market economy? Who knew that there are people out there who earn their livings by hiring themselves out to law enforcement agencies, to gather intelligence by infiltrating gangs and organisations? We’re not talking about under cover cops here. These are civilians.
One such civilian is Alex Caine. Caine few up in Canada and had a tumultuous childhood, frequently skating around the fringes of the law. In the late 1960s, looking for something more adventurous he travelled to the USA , enlisted in the army and spent time fighting in Vietnam. On his return he found it difficult to settle down.
Caine was and is a martial arts aficionado. One day while attending a competition he was befriended by a fellow practitioner who was a member of The Bandidos motorcycle gang. In the course of conversation, Caine was asked if he was interested in helping to make a large drug buy. Disconcerted, Caine gave a non-committal answer. He later told his wife who encouraged him to report this offer to the authorities, which he duly did. Not long after, he was approached by the Mounties and asked if he was interested in accepting the offer and infiltrating the gang. So began Caine’s new career.
Over a period of twenty or so years Caine infiltrated gangs such as the Bandidos, the Hells Angels, and even the KKK. He also made contacts with and supplied information on Asian Triads, Russian mobsters and corrupt cops.
Book Review
BEFRIEND AND BETRAY is an insider’s story of this complex and murky world where you can trust no one. Not only did Caine have to be wary of the gang he was infiltrating, but he also had to be circumspect about who he trusted in law enforcement. His is a story of creating alternative identities and living on his wits, often for months at a time. It makes compelling reading.
Just how such people live, how they maintain their own identity and the effects on their relationships outside their work is as fascinating as the details of the work itself. In some instances Caine’s story raises as many questions as it answers. Just how effective are these types of operations? The biggest success of his career, Caine feels is his first, the infiltration of the Bandidos. It resulted in dozens of arrests across the USA, Canada and internationally, but ultimately it didn’t put a stop to the gang’s drug-dealing activities. It just slowed it down for a while.
I thought BEFRIEND AND BETRAY said as much about the character of Alex Caine as it did about the gangs he was infiltrating. Caine’s seemingly burning need for danger and excitement appeared to come before anything else. With a trail of failed marriages and estranged children behind him , Caine has finally given up this work. At least that’s what he claims in his book. The author blurb tells us that Alex Caine now works as an advisor on motor cyclegang investigations and is a frequent guest speaker at police conferences. He is a certified fifth-degree black belt martial artist. One does wonder about the ultimate cost of his unconventional life. Will he be alone in his old age or will his desire for living on the edge once more take control and lead him back to old life and ultimately cost him his?
ISBN 9781731784701
Blurb from the Book
Just where is justice in Australia hiding? This brilliant new collection of true crime stories takes us into the Australian courts of the 1980s and '90s, back in time to the goldfields of the 1860s, and out to the island nation of Nauru in 2006 to explore how the scales of justice are unbalanced. This is a world in which the innocent still get locked up and the guilty too often go free.
How Did you Feel About Meaner than Fiction?
Submitted by Karen on Wed, 03/12/2008 - 3:55pm.
Technorati Tags: ISBN 9781741786606
Blurb from the Book
Rough Justice: Unanswered Questions from the Australian courts examines the question at the heart of our criminal justice system - what happens when our courts get it wrong?
How Did you Feel About Rough Justice?
Submitted by Karen on Wed, 03/12/2008 - 3:49pm.
Cover Image
Publisher
Allen & Unwin
Copyright
2008
ISBN
978-1-74175-561-9
No of Pages
416
Price
Book Synopsis
In the early hours of 13 October 2002, Australian spy Alan McQueen is jolted awake by a phone call and told to head immediately to Bali, where more than 200 people have been killed in a series of bomb blasts.
Assigned to keep an eye on the forensic teams working the bomb sites, McQueen - aka Mac - discovers that, contrary to the official line, a mini-nuclear device probably caused the most destructive of the blasts.
Book Review
SECOND STRIKE is the second thriller starring Alan (Mac) McQueen, although this particular book brings the actual action a lot closer to home than the first - GOLDEN SERPENT. Readers who find books set in recent events uncomfortable, may struggle a little as SECOND STRIKE starts off in Bali - in the aftermath of the terrorist attacks in Kuta that killed over 200 people in 2002. Mac is called in to help the investigation teams, joining the elite unit of spies and soldiers tasked with hunting down the terrorists implicated. Despite a hot pursuit, the terrorist ringleaders avoid capture.
Five years later, Mac is back in Indonesia, still involved in espionage but this time in something a little less physical, when bullets start to fly and it seems the old foes have returned. Mac finds himself compelled once again into the role of lone hand as he struggles to stop whatever the ringleaders are up to this time, and deal with the complacency and traitors in his own ranks.
SECOND STRIKE is every bit as action packed as GOLDEN SERPENT. In fact the action rarely lets up, although there are some "quieter" times thoughout the book mostly with brief interludes into Mac's happy, almost idyllic personal life. Of course this is a thriller though, so there's an ever present sense of menace even in the personal life as Mac's wife continues her own job which produces its own threats, over and above anything that Mac might drop the family into.
As confrontational as the starting point of the Bali bombings may be to some, they, and the very Australian stylings of the main characters in this book provide an interesting local sensibility for SECOND STRIKE. Right down to the ultimate threat at the end of this book, there's no doubt that the central characters in this book are local, that the threat is to Australia and the region in which we all exist and the reaction is also rather Australian. Sure it's a bit over the top, Mac is one of the original energiser bunny types with seemingly unending energy, the ability to continue no matter how much physical damage he suffers during the battle, and possessed of an almost super-natural ability to see the plot when all about him are oblivious.
For a long time now, military, spy, intelligence thriller readers in these parts have had to feed their addiction with a hefty dose of English and American writers. Abernethy has written two books now that take that concept and dress it nicely with a great Australian sense of dry wit and irreverence.
Perhaps it's just my somewhat shaky understanding of things technical, but there are a few occurrences which didn't quite make sense (how can they block radio and mobile signals and still have working police radios?). There is a tad too much of the idyllic personal towards the climax of the book which might have been designed to increase the sense of what could be lost, but all it did for me was destroy a lot of the pace. Particularly frustrating as what was about to come wasn't that hard to pick and I just wanted to get back "into it!". Minor quibbles in what is, for the most part, one of those great escapist, fantastic thriller rides where the baddies are particularly dreadful and the goodies slightly flawed and the world is saved from the unthinkable ... just.
Cover Image
Publisher
Equilibrium Books
Copyright
2005
ISBN
1-920764-70-8
No of Pages
141
Price
Book Synopsis
Self-appointed private eye Sam Chauvel, fresh from unearthing Wil Dreamsworth, takes on the corporate world.
He goes undercover at consulting powerhouse HemmingsLloyd, a small firm that thinks big, rubbing shoulders with the wheelers and dealers, movers and shakers, legends and masters of methodology. Who will help him, who will lead him astray? Who is this Britney Spitz, the temp receptionist - could she be the answer to his sensuo-spiritual and other needs?
The answer is blowing in the wind ... or is there love in the air-conditioning?
Book Review
This is one of those little books that I've been keeping an eye out for over the last few years, finally tracking down a copy recently. At 141 pages it was just the right size for dropping into the suitcase that we're dragging backwards and forwards between houses at the moment.
Mind you, I didn't really know what to expect with the book, the blurb mentions private investigation and consulting firms, but it doesn't really give much else away. It turns out that Sam has been called in to investigage possible financial irregularities. One of the partners thinks that somebody is ripping off his earnings. Mind you, none of the partners seem to get on all that well, but having said that, they are sort of bit players anyway. Mostly the book is about Sam - Sam's life, the way he thinks, the way he sort of wanders around the investigation and his sexual and romantic conquests.
In novella form, the book is really all about Sam - Sam is a bit of a devil may care, lone wolf, with a heart of gold and a complicated personal life (so no real surprises there!). It was quite an amusing little book though, although I will confess I spent most of it a bit confused about what the supposed crime was supposed to be and whether Sam would ever stop drinking coffee and chasing the receptionist for long enough to concentrate.
Okay, so the twist is very obvious and the investigation prefunctory to say the least, LOVE IS IN THE AIR-CONDITIONING is more of an amusement than an enlightenment (if you know what I mean). But it did work as a diversion for a little while.
Thanks to Australian Online Bookshop, I was finally able to track down a copy of this book, originally published by Spinifex Press in 2001. It's described as a comic crime novel.
From the Blurb:
When the ghostly Fedora interrupts Julie Bernard's coffee in Brunswick Street, Julie's life is set to change.
Opening Lines:
I was in one of those grumpy moods when burning your fingers on the caffee latte glass is no longer pleasurable. That day I hated everyone - even Jodifosta, my beautiful blue heeler puppy.
I've been meaning to do this for the longest time. I've had a News and Views Summary page for other blogs here for a while now. (You can get to it via the Odds & Ends Menu at the top of the site). This is just a list of the posts from blogs that I read regularly in one convenient place. But what I have been meaning to do is set up a block on the front page. So there's one now. This block will update regularly as new posts come in from the blog feeds. It could be handy if you're looking for the latest.
Which incidentally - makes it worth mentioning that thanks to Uriah at Crime Scraps mentioning it, I've noticed the prize for Best Crime Novel 2008 [Basta Svenska Kriminalroman] has gone to Johan Theorin for Nattfak. Having one of his novels lurking here on Mt TBR this is yet another reminder to get a move on with this house move, so I can get a move on with some reading!
Unfortunately Peter Temple didn't win the Martin Beck for best overseas translated book, which went to The Murder Farm by Andrea Maria Schenkel which I was lucky enough to read recently. Pity about The Broken Shore, but The Murder Farm was an absolutely fantastic book (and co-incidentally one I just discussed in an upcoming article in Deadly Pleasures). Don't forget you can now sign up for an electronic delivery of Deadly Pleasures if you're outside the US!
Shouldn't we be celebrating the differences in language via our Crime Fiction choices?
I was reminded of how important language diversity was again this week when I read an interview that Barbara Fister did with Adrian Hyland.
There's a part of me that likes the inclusion of glossaries - I recently read A Carrion Death from South African pairing Michael Stanley and was particularly grateful for the glossary which explained some of the terms that I couldn't find via a little judicious Googling. Glossaries can contribute a lot to allowing your reading experience to widen from your first language - whilst allowing the author to keep the flavour of the place they are writing about. If we ever get to the stage where language, terminology and feeling has to be flattened out just to make a book accessible to some readers - well I for one will be wilder than a cut snake.
I understand that Australian slang is different and can be surprising for people who assume that because we speak English, we'll sound exactly like everybody else that speaks English, mind you, there's also a part of me that wonders .... idly ..... why American crime writers aren't forced to include glossaries for the rest of us (Gangsta Rap / Valley Girl / Southern Idioms / etc etc surely have just as much potential to confuse and bamboozle). Lord knows we speak fairly fluent English English, Australian English, American English, New Zealand English (although the current ad for the NZ / Australia Test series had me baffled for a few seconds until I figured out the accent .... chilly bin right, gotcha) around here, but the assumption that the language from areas other than your own should somehow be censored to make a book "accessible" to another culture, well, no thank you. I'd prefer to accept that everybody doesn't speak the same version of English and ... I don't know ... use reading to explore the differences.
But enough whingingi (look it up if you don't know what it means 
), Radio National's Book Show this morning had an excellent interview with Malla Nunn, South African born, Australian resident author of A Beautiful Place to Die. Well worth a listen, which you should be able to do online via their website.
I hear a very strong rumour (okay well I've seen the cover and read the blurb as well) about Geoff McGeachin's new book Dead and Kicking. Keep an eye out on AustCrime later in the week for a competition to win BOTH the earlier Alby Murdoch books (not only is Geoff a very good author, he's a very very nice blokei into the bargain!)
Now I'm behind in everything (including moving boxes now), can't seem to catch up on a single front. Still I will try and get some reviews published this week. In the meantime I'm currently finishing off Off Track by Claire Curzon (overdue for a review) before I get started on A Beautiful Place to Die.
ISBN
Blurb from the Book
When a movie about an Australian war hero takes Alby Murdoch to Vietnam, he discovers that some old soldiers never die and that it's not just the cameras doing the shooting . . .
A job as stills photographer and some top-notch nosh were two good reasons for Alby Murdock to be in Saigon. The third was that he had to clear out of Sydney and the spy fame for a while.
But when Alby snaps a photo of the wrong passing cyclo, suddenly more action is taking place off camera than on. Alongside his old flame, the bootylicious Jezebel Quick – and his new friend, the alluring Inspector Hoang – Alby is thrust into the murky, watch-your-back world of casino crime lords, bent politicians, rogue expats, killer fish and ruthless celebrity chefs.
Dead and Kicking takes us racing through the adrenalin-charged streets of Saigon, Hong Kong and Macau, through Darwin and the Top End and into Canberra's corridors of power. It's Geoff McGeachin at his irreverent, page-turning best.
How Did you Feel About Dead and Kicking?
Submitted by Karen on Mon, 01/12/2008 - 10:03am.
I've had this book on the top of the stacks for what seems like a lifetime now, and as per usual, you start these things and leave yourself wondering what the hell you've been doing not picking it up the second it arrived through the door.
This is the second book from Howell - an ex-paramedic herself, and they provide a very unique viewpoint of crime. From the paramedic point of view and from a very engaging female cop. Anyway more on that when I finish the book.
From the blurb:
Paramedic Lauren Yates stumbles into a world of trouble the night she discovers a body in an inner city alley - the killer still lurks nearby. When the murderer threatens to make her life hell if she tells the police, she believes im - he's Thomas Werner, her sister's ex and father to Lauren's niece ... and not a man to mess with.
Opening Lines:
The wind howled between the buildings like a creature from an arctic nightmare as Lauren peered into the wreck, then turned to the cop beside her. 'He's dead.'
ISBN 978-0-9580061-2-5
Blurb from the Book
'Don't you realise you can get by without other people? They're the ones who make you sad. They're the ones who let you down, who disappoint you. And a troubled heart's such a chore.'
Every year, thousands of people travel to faraway lands to to teach English as a foreign language. The fools. One such expat is Paul Taylor, a heartbroken Aussie looking for a fresh start in a South Korean classroom. The lack of training isn't much of a help, but it's the baffling natives and unhinged flatmates that really start to convince him he's crash-landed in another galaxy.
And on Planet Andong, no one can hear you scream.
How Did you Feel About English Toss on Planet Andong?
Submitted by Karen on Wed, 26/11/2008 - 2:41pm.
ISBN 978-1863951388
Blurb from the Book
Australia is not short on stories of murder and mysterious deaths --all chilling, many unresolved, and most still screaming with unanswered questions: What impels a man to open fire on a cafe full of tourists? How could a young girl stab her school friend 47 times in the neck, spraying the ceiling and walls with blood? Who is responsible for the Snowtown murders? In this Australian classic, crime writer Kerry Greenwood presents an outstanding collection of the finest crime writing,trenchant, hard-hitting and defined by a keen intelligence and sensitivity.
A murder story in verse has won Sisters in Crime's 15th Scarlet Stiletto Award presented the tonight in South Melbourne (21/11).
Evelyn Tsitas (Canterbury, Vic), a former senior journalist at the Herald Sun, won the HarperCollins first prize of $750 plus the coveted trophy, a scarlet stiletto shoe with a steel stiletto heel plunging into a perspex mount for "Undeceive", a story about poetry, literary theft and betrayal. It also took out the Dorothy Porter Award for Innovation ($250) which Tsitas won last year for her story "Xenos". Her novel Xenos and her investigation into what it means to be human in the 21st century will form the basis of her PhD in Creative Writing at RMIT University. She has written libretti for two children's operas Software and Bookworm and play Springs Eternal.
Sisters in Crime spokesperson, Phyllis King, said that ironically poet Dorothy Porter had established a Scarlet Stiletto Award for Verse in 2002 but decided to change it last year into an award for innovation as the category usually only attracted half a dozen entries.
"Dorothy Porter's wish for a beautifully crafted crime story in verse has now been fulfilled. The judges didn't even consider another story for the top prize," she said.
"This year's stories reflected a new theme - investigating infants, well actually babies tagging along while mummies look into suspicious circumstances. Maybe it's the baby boom!"
Sisters in Crime's national short story competition offers $3100 in prizes and attracted 137 entries. Malla Nunn, author of A Beautiful Place to Die, a crime novel set in South Africa, presented the awards and also spoke about crime writing and growing up in Swaziland with Dr Sue Turnbull.
Fashionista Sally Browne was announced as the shoes' patron, offering an on-going supply of scarlet stilettos in which she's been photographed in all over the world, including the peak of Mt Kilimanjaro. Brown also lent scarlet stilettos as table decorations for the award ceremony at Bells Hotel.
Kirsti Watson's (Malvern East, Vic) first-ever crime story, "Monitoring the Neighbours", a tale about what the baby monitor picks up next door, won both Kill City 2nd prize ($400) and the Chronicles Bookshop Award for Best Investigative Story ($200). Watson has been shortlisted in the Glen Eira Literary Festival for the past four years.
Readings Books Music Film 3rd prize ($250) was shared between Janet Stutley (Thornbury, Vic) for "Red Gold", a story set on the Victorian goldfields on 1854, and Natasha Cretani (Cowes, Vic) for "Hot Dogs", a tale about the disappearance of neighbourhood dogs. Stutley won awards in the 2001 and 2002 Scarlet Stiletto Awards, performs 'activist cabaret' with Reds under the Bed and is currently writing a new series of children's fantasy novels under the nom de plume of Jaz Ghent for Clean Slate press (NZ).Cretani, an award-winning country music singer and songwriter, is writing her first novel about the high misadventures of a heroine who is Nancy Drew meets Bridget Jones by way of Lauren Bacall.
Two twelve-year old school girls from Melbourne shared the Allen & Unwin Young Writers' Award ($250) for writers under 21 - Nese Gezer (Prahran, Vic) from Loreta Convent for "Crossroads" and Isabella Beischer (Balwyn, Vic) from Genazzano FCJ College for "Viola Stiletto and the case of the serial husband". (Note: where prizes are shared, Sisters in Crime pays the full
amount to both winners.)
Ronda Bird (Balwyn. Vic), who won the The Kerry Greenwood Malice Domestic Award ($500) in 2000, took it out again for "Kitchens can be dangerous", where the 13-year-old narrator cooks up a plan to kill the stepfather who raped her. Bird discovered a flair for writing short stories as a mature age student in the nineties and has won more than 50 short stories prizes in Australia and Britain. She is trying to find a publisher for her novel about a Melbourne PI.
Corinne Pentecost (Chippendale, NSW) was awarded The Cate Kennedy Award for Best New Talent ($350) for "Snow Angel", a story as much about beauty of an isolated winter land as it is about its inhabitants, and the potential of both to destroy.
The Pulp Fiction Bookshop Award ($150 gift voucher) for the funniest story went to last year's 1st prize winner, Aoife Clifford (East Ivanhoe), for "Wax", an hilarious story where a woman at a beautician's overhears another talking about an affair with her husband and decides to tackle the situation head on or rather hair off. Clifford, a former union official, wrote the story while suffering from morning sickness with her third pregnancy and didn't realise how important a focus it was in her life until she found herself thinking that Scarlett would be a good name for her unborn daughter.
Special commendations also went to: Jane Blechynden (Mt Hawthorn, WA), last year's youth award winner, for "Wormystery" and Erin Brumpton (Sherwood, Qld) for "Creepy Crawly" (Youth Category); Cheryl Rogers (West Swan, WA) for "Green Dream"; Natasha Molt (Kambah, NSW) for 'Hoarder"; Margaret Hickey (Glenrowan, Vic) for "Fill her Up"; Maris Morton (Uki, NSW) for "Spider"; Myra King for "My Brother Brannigan"; Karen Allingham (Ballarat, Vic) and 0
(Avalon, NSW) for The Condom Tree".
A second volume of winning stories from the Scarlet Stiletto Awards is to be published next year buy The Five Mile Press.
The 16th Scarlet Stiletto Awards close on August 31, 2009. The entry fee is $10. Entry forms will be available next year by writing to Sisters in Crime, GPO Box 5319, Melbourne 3001 or on its website: http://home.vicnet.net.au/~sincoz/
Print quality photos can be emailed on request.
Further info: Contact Phyllis King on 0411 084 300
ISBN 978-1-4050-3877-5
Blurb from the Book
In 1950s South Africa, the colour of a killer's skin matters more than justice.
When Captain Willem Pretorius, an Afrikaner police officer, is brutually murdered in the tiny backwater of Jacob's Rest, Detective Emmanuel Cooper is sent to investigate.
The local Afrikaners and the dead man's prominent family view Cooper, an 'English', South African, with suspicion. Soon, the powerful police Security Branch take over the investigaiton.
How Did you Feel About A Beautiful Place to Die?
Submitted by Karen on Mon, 24/11/2008 - 12:16pm.
About the Author
Malla Nunn grew up in Swaziland before moving with her parents to Perth in the 1970s. She attended uni in WA and then in the US. In New York, she worked on film sets, wrote her first screenplay and met her American husband to be, before returning to Australia where she began writing and directing short films and corporate videos. 'Fade to White', 'Sweetbreeze', and 'Servant of the Ancestors' have won numerous awards and have shown at international film festivals from Zanzibar to New York.
Malla and her husband live in Sydney with their two children
Website & Links
Bibliography
Is Malla Nunn one of your favourite authors?
Submitted by Karen on Mon, 24/11/2008 - 12:10pm.
I must admit I like a good thriller. I don't really care if they are "boys books", or spy thrillers, or romping tongue in cheek thrillers, but I do like a good thriler once in a while.
Mostly because a good thriller should be entertaining. Hugely entertaining. I think there's something vaguely reminiscent about them - the days of reading books hiding in the hot longue room when I should have been doing my homework (or household chores or something equally uninteresting). If often think that the Alfred Hitchcock and the Enid Blyton books that I started reading as a child were the ones that started me on this life long love of a good thriller.
That's not to say that I haven't had to read some bloody dire thrillers - but luckily not recently. Second Strike by Mark Abernethy is the latest thriller I've read (which I'll write up a review on this week), and it was one of those fun, slightly crazy thrillers with much charging around in the jungle, some intrigue, a little bit of love lost and romance, and a healthy touch of an Australian sensibility. These are military intelligence style thrillers, with the latest set around the Bali bombings. I don't think there is anything in the book that's particularly insensitive to the outcomes in Bali - for all those killed or injured, but if you're sensitive about current events being used in this context, be aware of the context.
This week I'm still trying to get back into regular reading - the carting of things up to the new house and the sporadic redecoration in preparation for a "final push" is pushing on apace and it's taking up a lot of time. But I am going to pick up Katherine Howell's second book - The Darkest Hour and then maybe A Beautiful Place to Die by Malla Nunn.
Cover Image
Publisher
Penguin Publishing New Zealand
Copyright
2007
ISBN
978-0-14-300665-7
No of Pages
331
Price
Book Synopsis
When the body of a young mother is found washed up on the banks of the Mataura River a small rural community is rocked by her tragic suicide. But all is not what it seems. Sam Shephard, sole-charge police constable in Mataura soon discovers the death was no suicide, and has to face the realisation that there is a killer in town. To complicate things the murdered woman was the wife of her former lover.
When Sam finds herself on the list of suspects and suspended from duties she must cast aside her personal feelings and take matters into her own hands to find the murderer and clear her own name.
Book Review
Unsuspecting, Gabriella Knowes invited death into her house. The reader knows that from the first paragraph of the prologue in Vanda Symon's debut novel. What we learn too in the first few pages is that this is a targeted kill.
To the lone young police constable in Mataura, Sam Shepherd, it first of all looks as if Gabriella may have committed suicide. But Sam is no fool, and she realises that there are things that just don't fit that scenario. But who would want to kill Gabriella, a young housewife, and why?
The investigation quickly passess out of Sam's hands. Within hours, the Mataura Elderly Citizens Centre becomes the centre of operations, a collection of CIB detectives from as far afield as Invercargill and Dunedin are called in, and a forensics team has been flown in from Dunedin. And then the investigators learn that Sam once had a live-in relationship with Gaby's husband. Sam is suspended.
It is rare that a book captures me for a whole afternoon, or that I read it in one sitting as I did this one. OVERKILL is a wonderful page-turner. Sam Shepherd is a gritty character, persistent, intuitive, a lateral thinker, a police constable who has always wanted to be a detective. Despite her suspension from duty she can't leave things alone and it is her persistence that finally solves the why and the who. In OVERKILL Vanda Symon has given Sam a sounding board in Maggie her flatmate. I liked her so much that I hope we see her in another novel.
The setting for OVERKILL, the southern part of the South Island of New Zealand is important for two reasons. The first is that it explains Sam's position as lone constable in charge of a small town police station. The second relates more closely to explaining why some one decides to "deal with" Gabriella Knowes. It is a setting that feels very authentic to me.
Well, I bought a copy of the next book, THE RINGMASTER, when I bought OVERKILL. I'll have a hard time preventing myself from promoting it up my reading list in the next week or so. There's an extract from RINGMASTER at the end of OVERKILL. It is also a Sam Shepherd title.
Explore Vanda's blog and her website for yourself.
If you are outside New Zealand, you will be glad to know that in Australia you can get both titles through Angus and Robertson; the Book Depository in the UK lists them, but they are out of stock; and Amazon UK lists OVERKILL.
Cover Image
Publisher
Allison and Busby
Copyright
2008
ISBN
9780749080839
No of Pages
398
Price
Book Synopsis
Roy Angel is a Private Investigator. He is the token male at an all female agency. His wife, a successful fashion designer, has recently given birth to their first child.. But there’s a fly in Angel’s blissful ointment. The Agency is insisting he is not entitled to extended paternity leave and his mother has descended upon them to “help” with the baby. Angel’s mum is a bit eccentric. She’s a hippy with a penchant for trouble and has the maternal instincts of a doorknob. Angel takes on the job of searching for a missing script writer. The bank financing the film is getting jumpy because the final draft of the script is past due and the writer hasn’t been seen in nearly two weeks. The investigation takes Angel out of his comfort zone of London into the wilds of Yorkshire. He is aided by fellow PI Ossie Oesterlein, a very large man with an even larger appetite, who lives at home with his mum and is into line dancing in a big way. So just how does a search for a missing man end in a murder hunt with Angel staring down the barrel of a loaded gun contemplating his own death? And what does a Polish porn star have to do with it?The story is told from Angel’s perspective. As the narrator, Angel’s voice is highly amusing; particularly the banter between himself and Ossie. These two are about an unlikely a pair as you’ll ever come across. His wife’s increasing exasperation and annoyance at Angel’s extended absence from the martial home is also very entertaining, as is his mother’s antics. The author, Mike Ripley, deftly changes both the tempo and mood of the plot as what begins as a routine missing person case and a jaunt to the north becomes a matter of life and death for Angel. ANGELS UNAWARE is a light-hearted detective yarn with a somewhat dark centre. I was surprised to learn that ANGELS UNAWARE is the fifteenth in the Angel series. I must look out for more. Mike Ripley’s Roy Angel has slipped under my radar until now. Don’t let it slip under yours.
Book Review
Another book that's been in my mind as something to track down, has just lept into my hands demanding to be read. To be honest I feel the need for something a little quirky - hopefully funny, so we'll see how we go.
From the Blurb:
Self-appointed private investigator Sam Chauvel finds himself back in the corporate world.
He's working undercover at consulting power-house HemmingsLloyd, a small firm that thinks big, rubbing shoulders with the wheelers and dealers, the movers and shakers, the masters and mistresses of methodology. He does coffee, he does lunch, he does email, he does drinks.
Who is helping him? Who is leading him astray? Which loveable lunatics, canines, activists and former pop stars are distracting him with domestic, environmental and techological issues?
Opening Lines:
It felt good. 4.15pm on a Wednesday afternoon in the late summer. Striding through the cold, hard, airy lobby. A dark blue suit with crisp lines that still carried a lingering fragrance of dry cleaner. Shoes shiny and clean. As someone once said, I didn't care who knew it.
We're back. This is the second time around for the Carnival on AustCrime - and it's been great fun to watch this parade wander around so many corners of the Crime Fiction world. If you're just catching on you can check out the Carnival Archives.
It's particularly happy timing to revisit the Carnival now, given the Scarlet Stiletto's will be handed out at the end of this week. The local Sisters in Crime group is incredibly supportive of local female authors, and the awards that they provide (The Stiletto's and The Davitt's) have done much to recognise many great books over the years. Check out the second Genre Flash for more details on some of the great books from the Sisters (and Brothers In Law).
Katherine Howell is the latest Davitt Winner and for anybody who is wondering how a Davitt Winner writes I'd suggest you read From the Heart on Katherine's website. Personal thanks to Katherine for reminding us of the work of paramedics.
Sticking to this end of the planet, there are great blogs that I wanted to point people towards.
Firstly in South Africa there's a growing crime fiction (and fiction in general) scene which can be followed at Crime Beat. I've found myself increasingly drawn to this blog and it's particularly good timing as the feature article there at the moment is from Mike Nicol who is taking a look at what is happening in crime fiction as it flourishes on the African continent.
Another blog which isn't strictly crime fiction, but is amazingly prolific and fascinating is Perry's Australian Literature blog Matilda. Ranging from current day books, back through the history of Australian literature Perry's blog never fails to highlight books and happenings in Australian literature of all kinds that you're just not going to hear about elsewhere. This is a must visit for anybody interested in books of any genre.
Over the pond, in the magnificent Land of the Long White Cloud Bookman Beattie's blog is worth a read for a couple of reaons. For a start it's one of the few places where I can regularly get news of what's happening in the New Zealand book scene, plus it's interesting to watch what catches the eye in world affairs.
If you're into social networking then Crimespace could be a good place for you to join in. It's a community of crime fiction fans and writers, set up by Australia's own Daniel Hatadi. Because it's crime fiction focused there are book discussions and topics that appeal to those of us who are .... well ... let's be honest ... a bit obsessed 
Radio National's The Book Show which goes to air at 10.00am on weekdays, is a program dedicated to books and writing. It has been running in its current form since 2006 and you can listen to the show live on the radio, streaming online or you can download the podcasts. The sorts of books, and writers that are interviewed, discussed or broadcast reading from their own work is very wide, and they also provide a daily book reading from a selected text (although many of these are not available online due to copyright).
And finally - fingers and toes crossed, and appropriate intercessions muttered for Peter Temple's nomination for the Swedish Crime Writers Academy’s 2008 Martin Beck Award, for his book The Broken Shore. (Truth is due out at the end of November - don't get in front of me at the bookshop queue, it could get very messy!) The winner of the Martin Beck is announced on 30th November.
Cover Image
Publisher
Five Mile Press
Copyright
2008
ISBN
978-1-74211-521-4
No of Pages
269
Price
Book Synopsis
Most murder victims in Australia are killed by someone they know - usually by someone in their family.
Killer in the Family explores more than twenty cases where families have been torn apart by murder.
Book Review
KILLER IN THE FAMILY is the sort of true crime book that goes back and looks at a range of different cases - many of which were extremely notorious - but in this book, the viewpoint is, as the title suggests, where the killer has been part of the victim's own family.
The introduction to the book starts out with some startling statistics - analysing the total number of homicide incidents in Australia (5226 in the seventeen years to 2006) - 5617 victims and 5743 offenders. From there the breakdown of the number of "stranger murders" versus "murder by a friend or acquiantance", breaking the latter down further into murder by "intimate partner". One way or the other, you read these sorts of statistics and you just have to wonder how people can get themselves into that position. But there's nothing very sophisticated or unusual in most of the motivations for most of these murders - it seems to come down to a combination of jealousy, fear, resentment, monetary gain, revenge, sheer bloody stupidity or some combination of all or some of them. Unfortunately, when it comes to close human relationships we don't seem to be learning much from the past.
The style of the book is to discuss the events - as known - in the leadup to these crimes, and then look at some of the impacts and outcomes - including the sentencing handed down to the perpetrator. (This frequently includes some very pithy and hard to disagree with conclusions on the part of the authors).
The book is really well worth reading as it provides some real insights into the nature of the crimes and the people that were involved, as well as providing a viewpoint of the outcomes which often isn't discussed in books "reporting" the crimes only.
The range of crimes reviewed is also quite extensive, which was extremely sobering. They are grouped together into a series of parts - Father's Day, Suffer the Little Children, Women Who Kill, Children Who Kill, Men Who Kill, Families Who Die and The Hit List. It's astounding the damage that people will cause to the people closest to them.
KILLER IN THE FAMILY takes a different angle on a number of well known (and written about cases), which is succinctly put with the groupings into the Parts enough to make you stop and think. Extremely readable, despite the subject matter, it sounds odd to say that you "liked" a true crime book - particularly one about people with such intimate contact with the people that they kill - but I've got to say I found this book extremely readable.
This is the second thriller from Mark Abernethy starring Australian spy Alan McQueen. Alan made his debut in the book Golden Serpent, which was one of the best military sort of spy thriller's I'd read in a while, so I'm looking forward to this one. Golden Serpent was a fabulous combination of action, humour, and even a bit of romance (although not of the soppy variety).
From the Blurb of Second Strike:
In the early hours of 13 October 2002, Australian spy Alan McQueen is jolted awake by a phone call and told to head immediately to Bali, where more than 200 people have been killed in a series of bomb blasts.
Opening Lines:
Flores, Indonesia - 12 October, 2002. They sat like surfers waiting for a wave, the four of them dressed in thin black wetsuits facing south-west into the Indian Ocean. Huge blue-black and purple cloud formations loomed above as if declaring an end to the dry season and signalling the start of the monsoons. The swell lapped into Mac's rebreather harness as his eyes scanned the horizon for signs of the target through the salty humidity. Behind him the sounds of bird life and monkeys occasional drifted from the remote southern shores of Flores.
There can be such a thing as too much True Crime.
I've read a couple of incredbly good True Crime books in the last week or so, and I think it's having an affect. You tend to look very closely at the people around you, and you certainly eye strangers in a somewhat different way (although Killer in the Family reminds you to watch the relatives as well!). I still maintain that reading True Crime is a necessary for me. Doesn't hurt to remind yourself that it doesn't matter how out there Fiction writers get, the real world can outdo them hands down. I'll write up a proper review on Fin J Ross and Lindy Cameron's book Killer in the Family - but there are two paragraphs in there that I just can't get out of my head:
"The term 'domestic homicide' also reveals a supplementary fact, beyond the nature of the relationship between killer and victim, and that is the location. Most Australian homicide victims, 63 per cent of them in fact, are killed at home, or in the home of a spouse or relative.
This means that for some people it's safer to walk alone at night through a rough neighbourhood waving a wad of cash than it is to sit down at their own dining table."
I really did try to be very nice to himself this weekend - as he wielded hammers and saws and chisels during renovations. Can't beat any of them with a paintbrush!
Hopefully we'll be at the Scarlett Stiletto's on Friday night - not only should it be a top night out, it'll be a darn good change from redecorating!
This month's reading total is going to be way down on normal numbers, but I cannot put off Second Strike by Mark Abernethy any longer. I really enjoyed Golden Serpent so I've been looking forward to this, despite it being a bit of a doorstopper. After I've finished that - I'll be just that bit older, so I've not picked a next book, although Katherine Howell's second book The Darkest Hour is one out and one back in the running.
ISBN 978-1-74175-561-9
Blurb from the Book
In the early hours of October 13, 2002, Australian spy Alan McQueen is jolted awake and told to immediately head to Bali, where more than two hundred people have been killed in a series of bomb blasts.
Descending into Denpasar, Mac finds tensions running high between MI6, ASIS and the CIA, not to mention the Indonesian national police and Indonesian intel. Assigned to keep watch on the Australian forensic scientists working the bomb site - where the official line being peddled is that all the bombs were home-made - Mac learns that in fact one of the bombs was a military-grade mini-nuke.
Trying to glean the motives for misleading the public, Mac pursues a shady group of businessmen-terrorists through the wilds of west Java and into Sumatra. But the trail goes dead when the terrorists fly out of Sumatra in an unmarked plane.
Five years later, Mac is a freelance investigator living in Surfers Paradise, with his wife, Jenny, and baby daughter. During an apparently routine assignment looking into the people behind an Indonesian bio-engineering facility, Mac's partner is shot and MI6 turn up rather too quickly. Before too long Mac finds himself embroiled in the dangerous world of a new nuclear arms race.
Forced on the run, with no Commonwealth back up, Mac suspects a connection between what's going on and the 2002 Bali bombings. Remembering back to a puzzling note he found back then with M4' written on it, he suddenly realises it referred to Mantiqui Four, the legendary Fourth Brigade of Jemaah Islamyiah, who are dedicated to an attack on Australian soil.
The race is on as Mac discovers that the Fourth Brigade still have one remaining mini-nuke device. With ever-increasing tension, he trails his quarry from Indonesia to the Australian outback. In a thrilling denouement, involving three SAS troopers, several Israelis, the Indonesian police, and a Pakistani, Mac finds faced with more questions than answers
In this action-packed and gripping sequel to Golden Serpent Mark Abernethy confirms his status as a master thriller writer.
How Did you Feel About Second Strike?
Submitted by Karen on Mon, 17/11/2008 - 11:29am.
Publisher
Allen & Unwin
Copyright
ISBN
No of Pages
Price
Book Synopsis
Book Review
I am a PD James fan from way back. So when I opened this book I expected to get a typical English countryside revealing it’s most threatening and mysterious side. I also expected a dysfunctional group of suspects figuratively cut off from the rest of the world and bound together by secrets, professional ties, misguided love and jealousy. I also expected a well constructed and complex plot. I was not disappointed on any level.
When investigative journalist Rhoda Gradwyn booked into Mr Chandler-Powell's private clinic in Dorset for the removal of a disfiguring and long-standing facial scar, she had no idea that she would never leave Cheverell Manor alive. Commander Adam Dalgliesh and his team are called in to investigate the murder, and all too soon a second death, and get to the truth. The team consists of Detective Inspector Kate Miskin and Detective Sergeant Francis Benton-Smith as well as Dalgliesh, who has been dragged from planning his wedding to the elegant Emma.
This is a proper old-fashioned English detective story where there is an assortment of suspects none of whom appear on the surface to have a motive. Truths are uncovered and the picture is slowly pieced together. The one thing that really bugged me, and maybe the answer is there and I missed it, but when Rhoda Gradwyn was asked why she wanted to get rid of her scar she answered "because I no longer have need for it". The reader doesn’t learn why she no longer had need, surely an important reason as the removal is why she went to meet her eventual death.
While I enjoyed the book tremendously, it is not one of her best works. Dalgliesh seemed a little tired as a character, his heart wasn’t in his investigation and he was almost working on remote control. Also, I got a strong feeling that this could be Adam Dalgliesh’s final appearance, something in the way all the t’s were crossed and the i’s dotted in the epilogue – finalising a lot of threads – strongly suggested to me that P.D. James has finished with at least some of her characters.
November's Shots Ezine features a very entertaining interview with Adrian Hyland conducted by Stuart MacBride.
http://www.shotsmag.co.uk/interviews/2008/a_hyland/a_hyland.html
Stuart also has a highly entertaining blog called Halfhead which is worth checking regularly
Cover Image
Publisher
Hachette Australia
Copyright
2008
ISBN
978-0-7336-2277-9
No of Pages
287
Price
Book Synopsis
Cold Blooded Murder is a collection of gripping and authoritative accounts of some of the most monstrous murder cases of recent times.
They range from the assassination of John Newman to the bodies in the barrels in Snowtown; from the calculated killing of Dr Margaret Tobin to the bloody slaying of Frank Arkell; from Kathleen Folbigg's murder of her four babies to the dead woman in the boot - the Maria Korp case; and from the Wales-King murders in Melbourne to Sef Gonzales' slaughter of his parents and sister.
Here, Malcolm Brown and other award-winning journalists from around Australia take us deep into the minds of some notorious killers - and show how sometimes even a simple chain of events can lead to murder.
Book Review
Malcolm Brown is a journalist with the Sydney Morning Herald, where he covered (amongst other things) courts, royal commissions and coroners' inquests for more than 30 years. As well as editing COLD BLOODED MURDER, he has contributed a number of chapters, with remaining sections coming from a range of other journalists all from the region in which the crime was committed.
The book is broken up into chapters about a number of recent notorious crimes in all parts of Australia. A number of these crimes are particularly well known - the Snowtown, South Australia "bodies in the barrels", the murder of 4 of the babies of Kathleen Folbigg in New South Wales, and the Victorian "body in the boot" case of Maria Korp. Others are perhaps not so well known - the Sef Gonzales' killing of his parents and sister, the shooting death of Dr Margaret Tobin and the Wales-King killing in Melbourne where a son bludgeoned his mother and stepfather to death. Regardless of whether or not the reader knows anything at all about any of the crimes, it is the Cold Blooded nature of each one of these killings that is particularly sobering.
The name of the book is brutally indicative of the contents - there isn't a single killing in this that doesn't have a profound feeling of Cold Bloodedness to it. The method of telling the details of each case isn't sensationalist, or particularly gory or tabloid. It's mostly a very calm, careful relating of the events around each case and the acts of the killers. Maybe that's what makes the details even more startling. Because of the nature of the book, there is no indepth analysis or attempt to explain the nature of each case - each chapter is relatively short, sharp and to the point.
But the sheer breadth of the the cases is astounding, even if the reasons behind so many of them were so mundane, so ... well ... pathetic is about the only word that seems to come close.
Part One - Extended War covers the assassination of John Newman MP (particularly timely given that there was further court action underway whilst I was reading this); the rampage of Danny Karam's gang and the Bodies in the Barrels. Part Two - Psycho Killings covers the murder of Dr Margaret Tobin, the chain reaction triggered by paedophilia in Wollongong; and a brutal murder by bow and arrow in Sydney's northern beaches; finally covering the serial infanticide committed by Kathleen Folbigg. Part Three is then Family Killings - The woman in the boot, Maria Korp; John Sharpe's killing of his wife and daughter with a spear gun; the Wales-King killings and finally the case Sef Gonzales' who killed his parents and his sister.
At the end of it all, it's very hard to decide what's more disturbing. The sheer visciousness of the thrill killings of Snowtown, or the incredibly bumbling and callous cover up attempts by Gonzales' and Wales. Maybe what is more disturbing is the way that one person can manipulate another to commit such a cruel act as in the Maria Korp case.
Certainly COLD BLOODED MURDER isn't a pleasant read, but then it's obviously not meant to be. This isn't a fictional account, it's true crime.
From Text Publishing on 7th November 2008:
Peter Temple has been shortlisted for the Swedish Crime Writers Academy’s 2008 Martin Beck Award, for his multi-award-winning novel The Broken Shore.
One of the most prestigious international crime-writing prizes, the Martin Beck Award is given annually to the best crime novel in translation. The other shortlistees for the 2008 prize are John le Carré, Robert Harris, Deon Meyer and Andrea Maria Schenkel.
The award is named after Martin Beck, a fictional police detective in a Swedish crime novel series written by Sjöwall and Wahlöö. It was initiated in 1971 and has been won by such luminaries as Ruth Rendell, John Le Carré, Len Deighton and Alexander McCall Smith.
The winner will be announced on 30 November.
Cover Image
Publisher
Delta Fiction
Copyright
2008
ISBN
978-0-385-34101-1
No of Pages
380
Price
Book Synopsis
The dead woman was found on a frozen lake, her body riddled with evidence of torture. Instantly, Inspector Anna-Maria Mella knows she needs help. Because the dead woman - found in workout clothes with lacy underwear beneath them - was a key player in a mining company whose tentacles reach across the globe. Anna-Maria needs a lawyer to help explain some things - and she knows one of the best.
Attorney Rebecka Martinsson is desperate to get back to work, to feel alive again after a case that almost destroyed her. Soon Rebecka is prying into the affairs of the dead woman's boss, the founder of Kallis Mining, whose relationship with his star employee was both complex and ominous.
Book Review
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 start of THE BLACK PATH, that she has been through a traumatic experience and she's struggling back into normal life.
But one thing you will find with THE BLACK PATH is that Rebecka, or Anna-Maria or any of the other characters that either reoccur from earlier books, or step forward into the limelight in this book, won't necessarily remain as the focus of the book. This isn't a book that's specifically about a single person's journey through the events that lead up to a crime (perhaps with the exception of the victim herself), but a story about the swirling circumstances of lives lived. That's not to say that the book has an unfocused or messy feel to it, rather the opposite. But it does give the way the story unfolds a fascinating, sort of ephermeral feel to it, as the focus moves around, and the events that somebody - but not everybody - are involved in, all lead to a resolution.
I have to say, that for me, there was a strong sense of Swedish about this book. But this was a combination of things. The weather, the environment, the sensibility of the people, the way that the supernatural interwove with the mundane facts of life. The book also incorporates some glimpses into Sami culture which were absolutely fascinating.
As with the first of this series that I read, I still find Rebecka and Anna-Maria slightly offputting as characters. Don't know why, but they just are. Having said that, they are fascinating, and people I'm interested in and care about slightly from afar. There's some real skill in writing a story with characters like these that keeps you so involved. But I was also very taken with the lack of predictable styling of the book - I liked the way that the story evolved without the need to ensure series characters got their alloted page space.
This True Crime book by sisters Lindy Cameron and Fin J Ross starts off quoting some seriously sobering statistics:
"In the seventeen years to 2006 there have been 5226 homicide incidents in Australia, involving 5617 victims and 5743
offenders. Even for nearly two decades, that seems like way too much murder. In the latest reporting period alone there were 283 homicide incidents in which 336 offenders were responsible for the deaths of 301 people."
From the Blurb:
Most murder victims in Australia are killed by someone they know - usually by someone in their own family.
Killer in the Family explores more than twenty cases where families have been torn apart by murder.
ISBN< 978-1-74211-521-4
Blurb from the Book
Most Australians are murdered by someone they know. Usually by someone in their own family.
Killer in the Family explores more than twenty cases where families have been torn apart by murder.
Brutal, callous crimes by the ones who are meant to care the most.
How Did you Feel About Killer in the Family?
Submitted by Karen on Mon, 10/11/2008 - 2:21pm.
The Sisters in Crime Scarlett Stilleto's are going to be announced on the 21st November, and as part of the nights festivities Sue Turnbull will be chatting with Malia Nunn. Malia is the author of A Beautiful Place to Die, a powerful new crime novel set in South Africa in 1953, as apartheid was being fully implemented. It’s a thrilling, action-packed story combined with a thoughtful, complex portrayal of an unforgettable time and place and the human desires that drive us all, regardless of race, colour or creed. Nunn grew up in Swaziland before moving with her parents to Perth in the 1970s. Her films Fade to White, Sweetbreeze and Servant of the Ancestors have won numerous awards and have shown at international film festivals from Zanzibar to New York.
Has anybody read it?
I must admit I'm gasping to get hold of a copy - but I might wait and see if it's on sale on the night and get it signed into the bargain (that is provided we're still here on the 21st as that will be getting close to escape to the bush time).
There's been heaps of moving work (and renovating work on the new property) done this week so my reading has slowed to a pace almost embarrassing. Although I will admit that Åsa Larsson's The Black Path is a book well worth savouring. I've also nearly finished Cold Blooded Murder after