2011

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The Black Russian

Submitted by Karen on

Author's Home Country: 
Australia
Category: 
Crime Fiction

Blurb from the Book

After yet another slow week at the cash register, that fine purveyor of second-hand literature, Susko Books, is facing financial ruin. Jack Susko sets off to a gallery in Woollahra to scrape up some coin with the sale of an old art catalogue. With his usual panache and exquisite timing, he arrives just as De Groot Galleries is being done over by masked thieves. Along with a mysterious object from the safe, the robbers seize a valuable first edition from Jack’s bag, too.

Sub Genre: 
Accidental Detective
Special Interests: 
Bookshop
ISBN: 
9781921640261
Location: 
Sydney
Series: 
Jack Susko
Publisher: 
Scribe
Year of Publication: 
2011

De Luxe

Submitted by Karen on

Author's Home Country: 
Australia
Category: 
Crime Fiction

Blurb from the Book

For once, Jack Susko is feeling pretty good: his secondhand bookshop is on the up, and the cops haven’t been around in ages. Even his cat, Lois, is being nice to him.

Sub Genre: 
Accidental Detective
Special Interests: 
Bookshop
ISBN: 
9781921844157
Location: 
Sydney
Series: 
Jack Susko
Publisher: 
Scribe
Year of Publication: 
2011

Chelsea Mansions

Submitted by Karen on

Author's Home Country: 
Australia
Category: 
Crime Fiction

Blurb from the book

When Nancy Haynes, an elderly American tourist, is brutally murdered in a seemingly senseless attack after visiting the Chelsea Flower Show, DI Kathy Killa suspects there is more to the case than first appears.  When another occupant of the palatial Chelsea Mansions is murdered hot on the heels of the first - but this time a Russian oligarch - everybody wants to get involved.

Sub Genre: 
Police Procedural
ISBN: 
9781742376387
Location: 
London
Series: 
Brock & Kolla
Publisher: 
Allen & Unwin
Year of Publication: 
2011

Dead Set

Submitted by Karen on

Author's Home Country: 
Australia
Category: 
Crime Fiction

Blurb from the book

Inspector Brad Chen - one-time football star and master detective - is not the man he once was.

He's on crutches, with his leg in a cast, nursing a thirst for Amaretto and a raging pain-killer addiction.

Then he's unexpectedly recalled from sick leave when the high-profile federal Minister for Immigration is found brutally murdered in her Canberra flat. Tracey Dale's proposed refugee policy was always controversial, and the list of suspects, which includes neo-Nazis, ambitious colleagues and a vengeful wife, becomes ever longer.

ISBN: 
1921145048
Series: 
Brad Chen
Publisher: 
Pan MacMillan Australia
Year of Publication: 
2011

Third Victim

Submitted by Karen on

Author's Home Country: 
Australia
Category: 
Thriller

Blurb from the Book

A widowed mother. A blood-soaked nursery. A missing baby.

When David Cavanaugh hears of this heinous crime, he knows immediately he doesn't want to touch it. The mother's guilt is obvious to all, and David and his team are determined to be bystanders only to Detective Joe Mannix's traumatising investigation.

So when David is unwittingly drawn into the case and appointed the mother's defence attorney, he knows the road ahead will be tough.

ISBN: 
9781742610108
Publisher: 
Pan MacMillan Australia
Year of Publication: 
2011

Rip Off

Submitted by Karen on

Author's Home Country: 
Australia
Category: 
Crime Fiction

Blurb from the Book

From the winner of the 2009 Ned Kelly Award comes a sensational new novel

It's November 2007. There's sewage in the big lake at the heart of the soulless city, Canberra, the TABs have been emptied by a deadly horse virus and the longest Federal election campaign of all time still has a fortnight to run.

Sub Genre: 
Police Procedural
ISBN: 
9781742610054
Location: 
ACT
Series: 
Brad Chen
Publisher: 
Pan MacMillan Australia
Year of Publication: 
2011

Born to Run

Submitted by Karen on

Author's Home Country: 
Australia
Category: 
Thriller

Blurb from the Book

Murder, Terror and Treason

Isabel Diaz is set to be the first woman to win the White House.

But her chances plummet when a Muslim protege is accused of syphoning funds to terrorists and, seemingly unrelated, an Australian software wiz is tossed off a London skyscraper.

Then, when a TV journalist digs up a dark secret from Isabel's past, her presidental hopes shatter.

Special Interests: 
American Politics
ISBN: 
9780980741889
Location: 
USA
Publisher: 
Pantera Press
Year of Publication: 
2011

LOVE HONOUR AND O'BRIEN - Jennifer Rowe

Author Information
Book Title: 
Love Honour and O'Brien
Author Name: 
Jennifer Rowe
Author's Home Country: 
Australia
ISBN: 
978-1-74237-583-0
Series: 
Holly Love
Categorisation
Category: 
Crime Fiction
Sub Genre: 
Humour
Private Detective
Location: 
Blue Mountains
Publisher: 
Allen & Unwin
Year of Publication: 
2011

Holly Love's in big trouble - she's got to find the cheating swine who ripped her life apart, which turns out to be a huge mystery involving a gloomy old house, a hearse-driving Elvis impersonator and a gang of vengeful thugs - not to mention a possessed parrot and a very cute guy who might just take her mind off all her woes! A funny and hugely entertaining mystery from a brilliant storyteller.
Book Review: 

I do like a bit of a romp novel, and LOVE HONOUR AND O'BRIEN is nothing if not a bit of a romp.  Which surprised me a bit - because the blurb sounded just a little dauntingly like it might be too chick-lit for me.  But Jennifer Rowe's return to mystery writing has hugely exciting, so exciting I picked up this book as soon as it arrived.
 
Set in the Blue Mountains (Rowe's home territory it seems), LOVE HONOUR AND O'BRIEN is, you'd have to hope, the first outing of accidental Private Detective Holly Love.  I say accidental as she starts out as an office worker who chucked her long-term (boring, cardigan wearing, pea squashing) boyfriend and almost instantly agrees to marry Financial Advisor and stunner Andrew McNish.  Which plan went rapidly to pieces on the night that she gave up everything in Sydney, and drove to the Mountains to prepare for the wedding.  Only to find Andrew, and all her money gone.  
 
Not a terribly surprising story up until here I hear you mutter...  we've been here before.  What's really good about LOVE HONOUR etc is that it does cover some well worn territory - but it does it with it's own sense of style and humour.  Holly is a great character - her man disappearing (along with everything in his house being repossessed around her) does not mean she packs up and runs home to mother - she hires a Private Detective.  The Private Detective dropping dead does slow her down a bit - but moving into his flat, taking up his mobile phone and getting on with his job and looking after his parrot - actually works.  Even the idea of a lunatic household / heirs of an undertaking millionaire - weirdly kind of work.
 
Okay so there's not a lot that's new here - and Holly's one of those accidental Private Detectives that is more catalyst than resolver, but the sense of humour is wonderful, the pace is tremendous, the cast of supporting characters really vivid and the whole thing just well ... works.  Definitely a book more for fans of the lighter side of mystery fiction, and one in which readers will have to accept that there are things in Holly's life that may just need a future instalment.  Rowe has once again proven herself to be a particularly dab hand at developing strong female characters, and building a plot and story around them that's engaging, hugely entertaining and quite clever. 
 

Ludo

Submitted by Karen on

Author's Home Country: 
Australia
Category: 
Crime Fiction

Blurb from the Book

Sydney, 1961: Jockey McAuley is just looking for a little direction in life.  On a fast track from high school to the old school, he stumbles into the notorious Phoenix affair, a netherworld of shady deals, half truths and men with more sides than a cut diamond.

And then there's Ludo.  Glamorous, unattainable Ludo, playing everyone by her own rules.  The game changes fast, and a wink and a nod can get a capable young man anything from a gun in the face to a fortune in his kick.

ISBN: 
9780702238987
Location: 
Sydney
Publisher: 
University of Queensland Press
Year of Publication: 
2011

A MAN YOU CAN BANK ON - Derek Hansen

Author Information
Book Title: 
A Man You Can Bank On
Author Name: 
Derek Hansen
Author's Home Country: 
Australia
ISBN: 
978-0-7336-2805-4
Categorisation
Category: 
Crime Fiction
Sub Genre: 
Humour
Location: 
Outbank NSW
Publisher: 
Hachette
Year of Publication: 
2011

Is it a CRIME to STEAL from bookies?

Book Review: 

I don't know - maybe it's because the book is set in a small country town struggling to survive (and I live 20 kilometres or so out of just such a town), or maybe it was the line on the opening page "He had the sort of body normally achieved by eating plankton.", but I was particularly disposed to liking A MAN YOU CAN BANK ON.  

It's not going to come as much of a surprise that this is a bit of a romp style novel.  There's the local town bank manager, a disgraced cop sent to the outback to serve his time, the bank manager's daughter, the local animatronics expert, a bloke connecting with his somewhat tenuous Aboriginal heritage (and a wife who is Aboriginal that thinks he's hilarious), Davo who runs the fish farm, a bunch of crooks, one crook's wife and her Kiwi driver, a couple of hired killers, an insurance investigator with an energiser bunny complex, a heap of Jack Russell dogs, a couple of city Detectives, some wolves, a large crocodile, assorted Japanese and German fighters, a motor bike, a clearing in the bush, a lake that didn't used to be there, a town on the brink of collapse and 3 million dollars.  Despite a slight worry that this might all end up being a bit forced - firstly this was absolutely hilarious in places and secondly, there was a really good solid storyline in amongst the lunacy.  
 
There are lots of delicious twists and turns in this tale - how Lambert Hampton found out about the buried millions, where he went from there, the timelines involved, how the authorities, the crooks, the insurance investigators and all can "think" they know what happened but "proving" it is a whole different kettle of barramundi.  And then there's how much Lambert is prepared to put on the line when push comes to shove and his daughter, friends and a Jack Russell need rescuing.
 
This book really is wonderful example of its type.  A fantastic romp with lots of action, lots of coincidences, a hefty dose of lunacy and some clever twisting and turning.  There's some hilarious images, lines and situations, but at no time does the thing slip over into farce - it's all very believable and quintessentially Australian bush.  There's some aspects which just made me cry with laughter - the way the Police Detective puts the media off the scent, the way Lambert counters with the town's reaction to the lake searching.  And then there's the animatronics.  Somebody really should remember to warn anyone new about those things.. but then again.
 
The only thing that worries me after finishing A MAN YOU CAN BANK ON is whether or not I can look the bloke who is working hard to keep our local town alive in the eye ever again.  I keep telling myself he's just on the board of the community bank.. he was never the bank manager...
 

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