Sorted on book title (not in series order)
DARK MIRROR is a first rate police procedural. The author plays fair with the reader. The clues are all there, it's up to you to sort out which are red herrings and which are genuine. He also strikes a nice balanace between the private lives of the characters and their work.
A...Read more
Since finishing THE DARKEST HOUR I've been trying to think of another author who uses such an unusual protagonist's viewpoint of violent crime. I can't, which simply could be my aging brain, or it could be that Howell is looking at violence from an angle that not many have first hand...Read more
Whenever an author’s debut book is as top notch as FRANTIC was – I always panic when I pick up their second. The expectations are always high; the reality is that sometimes those expectations don’t follow through.
Well, Katherine Howell has managed to do it again with her...Read more
Darkest Place is Australian thriller writer Jaye Ford’s fifth book of stand-alones involving women under threat who are definitely not victims. Review at ...Read more
‘He slowed as he took the bend, then sped up and pulled into the kerb. Door half-open, eyes on the mirror. The black sedan rounded the corner. It drew nearer, headlights off, the driver a hazy silhouette. Closer, nearly level. Passing. It kept going, the brakelights flashing once as it...Read more
The third book in the Caleb Zelic series finds him working hard rebuilding his life and his business after the very heated ending of the previous novel, AND FIRE CAME DOWN. In the time since his on again / off again business partner Frankie has disappeared, but his ex-wife Kat, now pregnant...Read more
Growing up in any rural community in the 1970's meant a LOT of talk about football. The boys that played were always the hero's, the girls that watched never mentioned, except if they were connected to the tuck shop at the ground in some way. Or cleaning the change rooms, and the toilets,...Read more
The fourth book in the Nell Forrest series, DASTARDLY DEEDS sees heroine Nell on a much needed holiday cruise around the Mediterranean. Except it seems that everyone has decided to go with her - her mother and her partner, her ex-husband and his new partner, her sister, a couple of...Read more
The thing about a book by Garry Disher is that I know it's going to be good. But every single time I find myself marvelling at just how good.
Disher is a master at the art of the space - be it in the narrative, the place or the thing. He evokes a sense of place better than any...Read more
Hands up everyone who has ever thought that owning a secondhand bookshop sounds like their idea of a perfect life. If your hand is in the air you might have a problem. Reading DE LUXE is either going to put you off the idea - or make it seem just that bit too exciting. Personally I still...Read more
DEAD AGAIN is the second novel in the Georgie Harvey and John Franklin series. Harvey is a Melbourne based journalist and Franklin a Daylesford based cop, and whilst it's not absolutely necessary that you've read the first book - TELL ME WHY, it would help a lot to understand why there is a...Read more
Two recent Australian crime novels – a PI mystery set in Thailand and a police procedural in Canberra – give a strong sense of place.
The Dying Beach is the third Jayne Keeney book from Angela Savage, following on closely from Behind the Night...Read more
Follow up to PROMISE, DEAD GIRL SING again takes Richards out into the field, away from his retirement, all in the defence of somebody he feels he owes.
Triggered by a phone call from Ida, a girl he never expected to hear from again (even though he left that phone on / charged /...Read more
Originally published under the title AN ACT OF REPARATION, DEAD GUILTY uses the complex subject of domestic abuse as a vehicle to explore the ongoing abuse and exploitation of women in very vulnerable situations.
Starting out with the murder of an abusive husband Sean Laidlaw,...Read more
One day I will finally understand how it is that I can find a book in a series intriguing (DEAD CAT BOUNCE in this case), and then completely and utterly miss the existence of the second novel. I mean there's catching the miss and there's waiting 7 or so...Read more
Do a quick search on any of the book reading community websites and you're going to find a large number of novels called "Dead in The Water", adding to the feeling that there's something nicely tongue in cheek about the title of Tania Chandler's second novel also being the title of a crime...Read more
You have just got to love a book that has an opening scene that takes you deep into the Vietnam jungle, right into the conflict and deep into the complicated politics of the war.
Or at least that's what it could have been like.
Some things are just never what they seem...Read more
Despite constantly "bragging" that we live about an hour from just about anywhere... it does mean that every trip in the car do to anything takes a while. We've recently turned to audio books to fill in the hours of dodging kangaroos and potholes and the most recent that we've been...Read more
Cass Tuplin has returned in second book DEAD MEN DON'T ORDER FLAKE. Proprietor of the recently rebuilt Rusty Bore Takeway, she's a fish, chip and dim sim dispenser extraordinaire with a sideline in private enquiries. Which means she's one of those slightly nosy women who can find out stuff...Read more
DEAD SET is the first novel for barman, labourer, industrial advocate, policy advisor and now author Kel Robertson and it's a very promising debut.
Brad (Bradman, but don't mention that in front of his colleagues) Chen is an ex-football star, Australian Federal Police Detective...Read more
DEAD WOOD is the second book from Tasmanian author s.j. brown, located in his home state, featuring Police DI John Mahoney.
Set within the fallout of the GFC, the novel explores the haves and the have not’s as a result of financial shakedown, within the framework of the very...Read more
Jack's life has certainly been a roller-coaster - there are liberal hints throughout the book of a somewhat less than spotless background and there's a pared down, minimalist sort of a private life. But his bookshop is something that is his, and he obviously knows a bit about the business...Read more
The Author of DEADLY DIPLOMACY has a background as a diplomat working for many years in Embassies and High Commissions in Australia, Brussels, the Caribbean, China, East Berlin, Indonesia, Mauritius and Switzerland. Her indepth knowledge of the workings of that world stands out in this...Read more
The third book in The Tea Ladies Mystery Series, sees Hazel, Betty and Irene take on one of their most dangerous challenges yet, with a real threat to Hazel's life on more than one occasion, Betty finding herself naked in front of a lot of strangers, and Irene hoicking a Molotov Cocktail...Read more
The third novel in the Reggie da Costa series, DEADLY GAME is set in 1920's Melbourne featuring the celebrated, well groomed crime reporter da Costa, and the brave, and very determined Ruby Rhodes.
da Costa has a habit of gathering beautiful woman in his life, with problems and...Read more
The second in the Reggie da Costa Mystery series from local author Laraine Stephens, DEADLY INTENT is set in Melbourne, in October 1923.
In this outing, heavy rains have battered Melbourne, and local crime reporter Reggie da Costa finds himself at the centre of a story when he...Read more
The second Lexie Rogers book from ex-cop Karen M Davis, it's interesting to note that we've now got a couple of female ex-cops from similar areas writing police procedural style books, although to this reader's eye, completely different sensibilities.
Given that this is the...Read more
The sixth novel now in the Fiji Islands Mystery series, DEATH OF A DIPLOMAT has a lot of twists and turns in the personal sides of the lives of DI Joe Horseman and his team. Because of that you really would be best to dip into the series a tad earlier than this one, just to get a taste for...Read more
The first book in a planned series of post-war literary crime novels, DEATH OF A FOREIGN GENTLEMAN by Steven Carroll was released in April 2024. Not sure when the next one is due for release but I'll be standing by for it when it arrives.
Set in 1947, in Cambridge England,...Read more
Built around the worlds of art fraud, forensic accounting, law and the European Mafia DEATH OF A FRIEND is the debut novel of Australian author Desmond L Kelly.
There's an interesting concept at the centre of this book - two men, friends since their schooldays, different...Read more