Sorted on book title (not in series order)

#AusCrime

Madame Midas, Fergus Hume

Growing up around Ballarat not quite as long ago as MADAME MIDAS is set, it was really amazing to see how much of the layout of the city remains and how many of the locations are easily identifiable. Which probably meant that I ended up reading this book paying a lot more attention to the...Read more

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A Madras Miasma, Brian Stoddart

Set in 1920's India, A MADRAS MIASMA takes place in an India that is looking towards independence from the British. With a strong sense of place, culture and time built in, this is debut crime fiction with potential.

The central character, Superintendent Le Fanu is a complex...Read more

Maelstrom, Michael MacConnell

Michael MacConnell's debut book MAELSTROM is - paraphrasing his own words - a book designed to appeal to thriller and crime fiction devotees; not falling into the trap of being too similar to other authors in either genre.  So I read MAELSTROM with that aim in mind.  

It's...Read more

The Mall, Michael Armstrong

Whoever said "write what you know" to Michael Armstrong got their message through loud and clear. THE MALL is set in the world of high finance commercial real estate, and features the wheeling, dealing, and dodging goings on of that, as well as the life and times of an ambitious young...Read more

Man at the Window, Robert Jeffreys

There's something very satisfying about the emergence of a new crime series set in Australia - this time 1960's Perth. This one includes a hat tip to a number of the older stylised detectives of popular TV series in that Detective Cardilini's is portrayed as, not to put too fine a point on...Read more

Man in the Corner, Nathan Besser

A lot of things happen to normal, everyday father, husband and businessman David in a big hurry. His wife confesses to a secret past which he can almost handle and then he collapses with a rare brain disorder requiring urgent surgery, forcing him into a period of recuperation. This leads to...Read more

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A Man You Can Bank On, Derek Hansen

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...Read more

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Marlborough Man, Alan Carter

Alan Carter is the author of the Ned Kelly Award winning Cato Kwong series (PRIME CUT won the Best First Award in 2011), but MARLBOROUGH MAN features a new character - UK born, New Zealand based cop Nick Chester and his family.

Chester's had an "interesting" working life -...Read more

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Masala and Murder, Patrick Lyons

The first novel in what one hopes will be a very long series, MASALA AND MURDER introduces Melbourne-based, Anglo-Indian ex-cop / private detective Samson Ryder to the world.

The author, Patrick Lyons, is Anglo-Indian himself, and his view of life obviously informs the way that...Read more

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Mavis Levack, P.I., Marele Day

Personally I think I agree with Eddy - Mavis is a busybody.  She's also a bored housewife, living in a flat with her retired husband, desperate for something to break the monotony of life.  When Claudia Valentine drops in to peak through the curtains as part of her investigation in The Life...Read more

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Medea's Curse, Anne Buist

When they say "write what you know" Anne Buist seems to have taken that advice very much to heart, especially when it comes to the clinical and working experience of her central character - Dr Natalie King. Hard to say about the Ducati, history of mental health problems and clothes sense...Read more

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The Midnight Promise, Zane Lovitt

On page 2 of this book I kind of got the feeling that we'd be destined to get on very well....

"He's got more prior convictions than brain cells which means he won't get bail, so he's wallowing in the Metropolitan Remand Centre at Ravenhall, trying to find a

...Read more
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Miles Off Course, Sulari Gentill

Not sure what's weirder, talking to fictional characters, or the feeling that you actually know those fictional characters...  Either way, you have to think it's quite a feat for a writer to get you to the stage where you're more than happy to regard her characters as real people. MILES OFF...Read more

Missing Pieces, Caroline de Costa

The second in the Cass Diamond series MISSING PIECES is set in far North Queensland, with Cass Diamond investigating connected cold case disappearances. In 1992, toddler Yasmin Munoz went missing from a picnic spot near Cairns. In 2012 local businessman and former mayor Andrew Todd dies,...Read more

Missing, Presumed Dead, Mark Tedeschi QC

Mark Tedeschi AM QC was, until 2019, the Senior Crown Prosecutor, and the head of Chambers of the Crown Prosecutors for New South Wales. He's now a private barrister, but in 35 years with Crown Prosecution he has prosecuted many high-profile trials in Australia, some of which have involved...Read more

The Mistake, Wendy James

I still remember the profound sense of disquiet that WHERE HAVE YOU BEEN? left me with, and Wendy James has done it again with THE MISTAKE.

There's something about Jodie Garrow that I suspect is going to trigger differing responses in readers. Personally I couldn't get past a...Read more

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The Model Murder

Never underestimate a tea lady.

Sydney, 1968. When a popular local man is murdered, police are quick to pin the blame on his glamorous model fiancée, who has since disappeared. But Hazel suspects a criminal cover-up and rallies the tea ladies to investigate; a...Read more

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Mole Creek, James Dunbar

Pete McAuslan is Vietnam Vet, and retired police officer, now holed up in the family's remote cabin near the small Tasmanian town of Mole Creek, writing his memoir. His grandson Xander is a Sydney based journalist, and they are close. So close that the shock of the death of Pete, and the...Read more

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A Morbid Habit, Annie Hauxwell

The third Catherine Berlin novel from Annie Hauxwell takes the concept of moving a character out of their comfort zone that bit further. Berlin is one of those unrepentant flawed types. A heroin addict she's prepared to manage the addiction with prescription medications, but she's really...Read more

Mosquito Creek, Robert Engwerda

MOSQUITO CREEK, the first novel from Robert Engwerda is set in 1855 on the northern Victorian goldfields.  It's a particularly pleasing experience to read about this area of the goldfields, deep in flood, when we've spent such a long desperate period in drought.

Engwerda has...Read more

The Mother-in-Law, Sally Hepworth

Lucy, like most women on the precipice of marriage, has spent some time considering not only what her new life might be like when she becomes a wife, but also how it might be to become someone’s daughter-in-law.  In order to achieve her happy-ever-after with the lovely Oliver, Lucy must...Read more

Move to Strike, Sydney Bauer

It is probably no coincidence that this book is likely to appeal to fans of TV shows like CSI and Law and Order as the author says she is very fond of those shows and the book has a structure, subject matter and delivery which seems somewhat reminiscent of that style of...Read more

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Murder at the Fortnight, Steve J. Spears

MURDER AT THE FORTNIGHT is set in the testing arena of the "theatre" and the arts. Showbiz commentator, Stella Pentangelli is returning from a bit of a "rest" as it's known in the trade, after a stella career as a showbusiness commentator and heavyweight. Inspector Ng is an investigator in...Read more

Murder By Wash Of Light, Geoff De Fraga

Originally published in 1970, this title was reprinted in 1991 by Weldon Publishing.

From the book: "When a famous, but hated, movie producer seems to have been killed by the very film technique he claimed to have invented, journalist Peter Cardiman turns detective. The tightly...Read more

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